Guests including Hollywood stars Natalie Portman, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and singer Janet Jackson piled on to wood bleachers at the Fine Arts School on the Left Bank, where models paraded in sporty outfits that were a blend of utilitarian and chic.

Fashion editors arrived in the French capital eight days ago with high expectations, after previous shows in New York and Milan were deemed disappointing. "Paris has been troublesome too," said Hal Rubenstein, fashion news director at In Style magazine. "I haven't been stunned. There's so much talent in this city and yet I don't necessarily think that everybody has done their best this season."

A controlled outing from John Galliano at Christian Dior on Tuesday was deemed "polite" (International Herald Tribune), "dreary" (New York Times) and "sensible" (Style.com) -- not words one would normally associate with one of the world's most inventive designers.

There were variants on masculine/feminine tailoring. Other catwalks were awash with billowing baby doll dresses and sky-high platform shoes, prompting critics to suggest that designers were failing to respond to modern women's needs.

"There are a lot of conflicting messages, and some clothes that, for me personally, I don't know how applicable they are to the women that I know," said Rubenstein.

"I think there's an inordinate amount of dresses. There's a certain kind of girlishness that's out there -- I guess the girlishness is what I find so upsetting," he added.

American designer Marc Jacobs struck a particularly odd note with his pastoral romp for Louis Vuitton. Models wearing pastel layers, and flower braids in their hair resembled a cross between Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko and Marie Antoinette.

A cream muslin shepherdess dress could have been lifted straight from his friend Sofia Coppola's recent movie about the 18th century French queen. Ditto for the pink satin corsets and pastel blue shirts ruched and pinned with white ribbons.

With its busy layers, this sugarcoated collection was hard to fathom at a time when the fashion pendulum is swinging back toward a more hard-edged sexiness reminiscent of the minimalist 1980s.

Israeli designer Alber Elbaz has built a loyal following for his romantic designs for Lanvin, but he cleverly sensed the changing mood. Black dresses made from curvy panels with contrast piping paid subtle homage to '80s style without veering into pastiche.

"Women are more assertive, they are more independent, they are more free in their own way," he told reporters after the show.

While many designers channeled their vision of the future into acres of silver and white, Elbaz took fabric to the laboratory, emerging with parachute silks in dusty earth tones and blends containing silicone, nylon, satin, paper and metal.

Lanvin's trademark zippers ran across military-style silk jackets with cargo pockets, snap buttons and epaulets. A master with volume, Elbaz draped crinkled parachute silk into bubble dresses, some with billowing drapes in the back.

"I wanted to catch newness. I wanted to catch technology, I wanted to catch almost engineering in pattern, all these forms. They took forever to do and it was the most funny thing to see an old atelier lady sewing a parachute fabric by hand," he said.

His efforts were rewarded with a stadium-worthy cheer.