Couture — impossibly perfect clothes in search of implausibly rich women — hit a new level in Paris two weeks ago. The greatest names in high fashion paraded their winter collections before audiences that included notably more private customers than at any time in the past 30 years. As the rest of us get poorer, the megarich, it seems, are untouchable.

They are a new fashion type, these rich and pampered couture shoppers. Although their lifestyles are European (and specifically London), their cultures span the world — Korea, China, Venezuela. And what are they here for? Excess — in colour, proportion and, above all, decoration.

Yet there was little innovation. Like the husbands who pay the bills — anything from £50,000 to £150,000 for an elaborately jewelled creation — these women don’t give tuppence for the avant-garde. They want a waist where God intended; they don’t want flashes in embarrassing places and are bemused by garments with three sleeves. They want everything just as it always has been — at least, since the 1950s. And Paris couture survives by meeting their needs.

They have other demands, too, such as quality of the standard even the best ready-to-wear labels cannot provide. They also want exclusivity, so most couture houses have an unwritten policy of limiting sales of any £100,00-plus garment to one per continent, with first choice going to the most loyal customer. As one vendeuse told me: “There are no ceilings now — they have all been broken. These women have closets to die for. And they all pay cash.”

She sums up the market forces by confessing: “We can’t get enough crocodile bags, even though they sell for £20,000. Kurdistani millionaires’ wives buy them in every colour, which often means 10 identical bags.”

This season, most of the blue-chip houses — Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Elie Saab and Valentino — provided just what the clientele ordered, although customers looked a bit glum at much of what was on offer at Chanel and Gaultier. Everybody loved Dior, though — there was a collective purr of contentment and relief as exquisitely wearable clothes came down the catwalk, mostly reworkings of Christian Dior originals from his brief 10-year career, with, of course, John Galliano’s unmistakable imprint. Based on the flawless elegance of Irving Penn’s late wife, the model Lisa Fonssagrieves, it was an ethereal collection with a modern kick. In a reversal of the fashion norm, which dictates that above the waist should be soft and diaphanous and below more solid, beautifully cut tops and jackets were teamed with sheer net skirts, with or without lace and embroidery, for a completely modern statement. This emphasis on legs was also seen at Valentino.

At Chanel, at the Grand Palais, there were echoes of the past, including Miyake pleats, Cardin tucks and Poiret’s scale, but the most obvious influence was Alexander McQueen’s ice-sharp tailoring. In Karl Lagerfeld’s hands, however, many of the pieces appeared too heavy and strained — they could have come off the drawing board of the architect Frank Gehry — but, as always, the daywear was pretty enough to make customers’ hearts sing.

I always keep my ears cocked at couture, especially near the customers. At Elie Saab, I overheard two granite-faced women: “I see most of the Middle East princesses are here.”

“Oh, yes, they never miss. They are such good customers. And they buy so much — and cash on the nail.”

“Well, he understands their world.”

And he does. After a show of romantic evening dresses, all of which put familiarity before originality, the scenes in the atelier were hysterical. Few of the top editors stayed to congratulate Saab, but why should he care? Order books were being opened before the models had even stepped out of their dresses.

Sadly, none of this is about dressing the young. Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy is the only designer trying to make couture relevant for today’s woman. He takes chances and sometimes falls flat on his face — as per this season, with out-of-scale hats and clumpy leg tubes — but at least these are clothes to wear during the day.

Less radical was Alessandra Facchinetti’s debut at Valentino: beautiful, ethereal and wearable, but a little too obsessive in its determination to reference Valentino himself. She must make her own fashion statement, and that means fewer ruffles and frills, an old man’s idea of femininity, and an injection of a young woman’s take on dressing.

So to the quintessentially French couturiers: Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier. Both experts, both geniuses, but both inclined to miss the target on occasion. This season, Gaultier’s exuberance seemed too perverse, with lavish use of reptile skins, the pelts of small animals and enough feathers to make it look as if a fox had got into the chicken coop. Worse were the leather cages binding full-length mink coats, the bustles, crinolines and stays. It was a Victorian fetishist’s wet dream, with fashion taking second place. For exquisite, almost doll-like beauty, Lacroix will be the designer of the season for many. Extravagant, exuberant, romantic, yet often with an almost Victorian primness, these clothes were a subtle exercise in colour, pattern and, surprisingly — this is Lacroix we’re talking about — control. Not modern, not young, but the work of a master. And that mastery is what couture is all about.

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