Sophia Kokosalaki

Moving to Paris and showing amid a sea of big-name designers hasn't always done Kokosalaki (a former star of London Fashion Week) many favours.

Once upon a time, the only infrastructure her contemporaries could lay claim to was a rented room in Hackney. Here, her counterparts have burgeoning accessory lines, pre-collections, three or four fragrances and mega-budget advertising campaigns to bolster their brand images.

So it's good to see that Kokosalaki is beginning to find a more confident voice. There were no signs of the muddled, half-finished goddess statements and in their place was a niftier line in tailoring. Inverted tulip-shaped jackets or neatly cut-to-the-body boleros in black or exotic skins with fanciful piping details certainly showed her at her slickest. High-waisted shorts and flippy skirts in jolts of gold also gave the largely monochromatic palette a more feminine slant. So too did the pops of tomato red, minty green and electric blue.

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Multimedia

• Pictures: Christian Dior at Paris Fashion Week

• Pictures: Vivienne Westwood at Paris Fashion Week

• Pictures: Jean-Paul Gaultier at Paris Fashion Week

Multimedia

• Pictures: Christian Lacroix, Givenchy and Sonia Rykiel

• Pictures: Stella McCartney

• Pictures: Karl Lagerfeld at Paris Fashion Week

If she was adept at subtly exploring an Egyptian theme - pyramid stacked heels and bewitching hair and eye make-up, and details that referenced the near East - she also managed to work wonders with pleats, folding them into stiff points around the back and at the neck to produce some expertly controlled and sensuous draped tops and dresses.

If there was one flaw, it was that Kokosalaki didn't know when to stop. Did we need to see the same jacket in four different colours? Probably not.

Comme Des Garcons

If Milan is ultimately concerned with the drama of big-name personalities, many in Paris are happy to let the clothes do the talking - to the extent of avoiding even such distractions as a model's pretty face.

Covering models' faces is proving to be quite a theme this week. Has a sudden rise in ADHD left us unable to concentrate for the duration of a 20-minute fashion show? Martin Margiela wasn't taking any risks the other day, resorting to nylon stockings, while the Comme Des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo, consistently dubbed the designer's designer for influencing among others, Marc Jacobs and Miuccia Prada, swaddled her models' heads in white candyfloss. No doubt there is some deep, meaningful explanation for it all, but it does force you to look at the clothes.

It's no understatement to say that Kawakubo challenges conventional ideas of sexiness. Who, one wonders, will be able to carry off the 3-D sculptural cocoon dresses or jackets, pieced together from hexagonal leather swatches, in a pattern reminiscent of a honeycomb or perhaps a football? Still, it was strikingly beautiful and food for thought.

Other questions that arose: how exactly will those metallic leather shoulder plates be repackaged and passed down the style food chain in time for next season's shows in New York? And will any of this be available at a fraction of the price when Kawakubo's collaboration with H&M goes on sale in November?

Jean Paul Gaultier

Fashion is a sort of performing art chez Gaultier. Last year the model Coco Rocha wowed us with a traditional Celtic jig to the strains of a bagpipe, while this week's collection included professional dancers gyrating to the beat of a jungle drum. A fitting context, then, in which to present clothes that fused a balletic wardrobe with Eighties-style dancewear.

There was a wonderful fluidity to the Grecian draping in putty nudes, the cashmere wrap, ribbed dresses that dropped to below the knee or the chartreuse ruched and pleated evening gown. Flashes of Fame-style neon on lace camisoles peeped out from beneath the deep V-neck tops and shoes were a high-heeled version of the ballet pump.

If some designers look only to the future, Gaultier can be counted upon to dig deep into the past - preferably his own. Cue a reworking of his trench, his tux jackets, pinstripes on masculine-cut suiting and an infusion of lace. Not, you understand, the Prada-inspired, intellectual-Sicilian-widow variety, but a come-hither, flimsy yet similarly exorbitantly-priced version.

Less fathomable were the jersey-like trousers that were infinitely revealing around the crotch and equally hoiked up from behind. Surely even someone possessed of a lithe and toned dancer's frame would prefer to leave that to the imagination and focus the interest elsewhere. And God help the rest of us.

Dries Van Noten

Now is no bad time to know that you are a designer with a reputation for creating one-off investment pieces (what is known in the industry as the non-fashion statement). All the better, it would seem, to capture the wobbly consumer market that is looking for something classic but with just enough of the “wow” factor to justify a big spend.

Did Van Noten envisage the financial woes that lay ahead when he put his show together? You might have thought so, judging by yesterday's pared-down collection. There were none of his usual overt references to an exoticism inspired by Middle Eastern cultures - none of the rich embroidery or bohemian deluxe details that he often pushes.

Instead, this was a largely monochrome take on the minimalist lines of 1950s tailoring with a few sporty (or slouchier) silhouettes thrown in to shake things up a little. A graphic check, slightly reminiscent of Prada's Geek Chic offering a few years back, was a recurring motif that appeared on loose-fit shirtdresses, trousers and even clutch bags. Colour was introduced quietly at first, on a few burnt-orange shifts with ombre shading, and then to a much noisier cacophony of purple, mustard and tangerine stripes on sporty jumpsuits.

This wasn't the most mind-blowing Van Noten show (a pity as its new location in the gardens of the Palais Royal was a magical setting) but perhaps the savvy designer is appealing to the shopper who is after something that is not going to appear too “of” a particular season.

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