Haute couture in Paris: Bejewelled skeletons and a mighty lion

Including fashion celebrities (Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington, Natalia Vodianova, Carine Roitfeld et al), the fame count at Chanel this evening was high - Jessica Alba, Gossip Girls Blake Lively and Leighton Meester and supermodel-cum-actress Milla Jovovich all turned up for the show.

Adding to the glamour-factor was the location - Grand Palais, the most spectacular, gargantuan, glass-domed building in Paris.

Oh, and that strategically placed golden lion in the centre of the circular catwalk didn't hurt. Some 30 metres wide and five metres tall, the lion stood guarding a single pearl (about 25 times the size of a soccer ball). Needless to say, excitement levels were extreme.

Another extreme - the temperature. Despite an 8pm start, the sun continued to blaze through the glass roof, scorching everyone beneath.

The room was abuzz: paparazzi shooting the stars, security guards attempting to direct the flow of traffic, friends running from section to section waving hellos and blowing kisses.

Then there were the non-professional point-and-shooters - Purple Magazine's Olivier Zahm snapping Carine Roitfeld, Suzy Menkes snapping Leighton Meester, Bryan Boy snapping Suzy Menkes snapping Leighton Meester.

I was seated in the seventh row, but due to the tiered bleachers and my placement directly behind Anna Wintour, the view was remarkably good. Natasha Poly opened in a blood red skirt-suit with slouchy leather boots crushed like gold leaf. Killer conservative.

The first section was heavy on coats in tweeds, boucles and wool felts. Full pleated skirts sashayed beneath cropped jackets, while fur cuffed three-quarter length coat dresses suggested an opulently Russian element-barrier.

The second featured elaborate day-wear - quilted, nude and white dresses; and vibrantly floral short-sleeved jackets over dark calf-length skirts.

But the finale, evening-wear, reigned supreme - colourful, brightly patterned and sparkling in the natural light. The dresses came decorated with cheeky zig-zags, diamonds and stripes and garden flowers. They reminded me of precious Fabergé Eggs.

When it was finished, Karl Lagerfeld's male-muse Baptiste Giabiconi accompanied the bride onto the catwalk, wearing a lion's head all of his own. This drew great cheers from the crowd but they were quickly drowned out by the applause for the designer himself as he took to the stage.

Lagerfeld is still King of the fashion jungle. They don't call him Kaiser Karl for nothing.

Over at Givenchy, designer Riccardo Tisci house opted for a less extravagant affair, choosing to host an intimate presentation over a catwalk show this season.

It gave attendees like myself a first time opportunity to view haute couture up close and personal.

Held in rooms at Place Vendome with gilded walls and parquet floors, we were permitted to literally touch the gowns. I'm afraid words can't do them justice, but here's a statistic that might - one dress required up to 1000 hours of workmanship, with 28 different people working on it at every point along the way.

There are very few women remaining in the world who can afford to get dresses of this kind tailor made, and their privacy concerns were another factor in the decision to move away from a catwalk show. Ladies who'll drop hundreds of thousands of euros on a single dress aren't necessarily the types who want their photographs splashed all over the gossip magazines.

Tisci's inspiration was the Latin American festival Day of the Dead, a holiday where those no longer with us are celebrated. It's a fiesta filled with gothic and Christian iconography - in particular skeletons and crosses.

This transpired into 10 looks, all incorporating skeletons (literally, the bones that shape a gown), and jewelled, metallic or embroidered crosses.

My favourite piece was a gold plated jacket that bore a strong resemblance to one the late Michael Jackson used to wear on stage.

If ever there was a couture client worthy of remembrance (and channelling), he was it.