a little turn on the catwalk

Sarah Burton's Pre-Fall 2013 collection for Alexander McQueen draws on nuns' habits and the kind of garments usually reserved for the highest-ranking clergy in the Catholic Church. Most of the looks are rendered in black and white, but not everything about this offering is austere and puritanical. A few evening ensembles have plunging necklines, and the hem of one dress stops mid-thigh. A high-heeled take on the pilgrim shoe and an emphasis on capes add to the religious drama here, but none of that is as dramatic as the final look: a gray cape with an overlay of white flowers.

Photos courtesy of Alexander McQueen.

Ulyana Sergeenko said her Spring 2013 Couture collection was inspired by classic American tales like Gone With the Wind. But long before her answer to Scarlett O'Hara's famous green curtain dress came down the runway, Sergeenko had already reaffirmed her commitment to storytelling by pairing her gowns with straw hats and parasols. One model even had a sack on a stick slung over her shoulder.

The clothes themselves spoke to the aesthetic that made Sergeenko an international street-style star. After all, she's one of her own best customers, and even pieces that looked like they were made from burlap were nipped in at the waist with full skirts. But what elevated Sergeenko's second couture effort were small details, like crochet embroidery (one example, attached to a white blouse, depicted dancing cats) and hand-painted porcelain buttons.

Other couturiers have built small parks with real trees and bushes to display their Spring 2013 Couture collections, but Valentino's Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli used garden elements in their actual garments.

Curlicues made from tubes of red, white, or black fabric decorated everything from dresses to suits and even shoes, echoing the wrought-iron gates and fences used to tame nature in public parks. One gray dress covered in embroidered birds was paired with a black cape made from the tubing, making the model wearing it look like a mobile birdcage. Black lace was arranged on one A-line skirt to look like a garden maze, and a procession of shimmering green leaves snaked up a sheer ruffled dress.

And while every other look carried a floral embellishment or appliqué of some kind, this collection was lightweight and even breezy in some instances. That feeling owed to Chiuri and Piccioli's use of sheer fabrics and light colors. With the exception of Valentino red, the collection primarily featured whites, cream, gray, pale pink, and black. A few sleek dresses without decoration and jackets with an off-the-shoulder cut helped the offering feel modern.

Millions of beads, scrolling embroideries, and piles of lace might not conjure the idea of weightlessness outright, but in Elie Saab's capable hands that's precisely what you get. For Spring 2013 couture, the designer whipped those materials — as well as charmeuse, mesh, chiffon, and metallic thread, and even brocade floral prints — into a light-as-air cloud of heaven that was as breathtaking as it was soft.

Cover Photo Source: Courtesy of Elie Saab

Jean Paul Gaultier looked east, and specifically to India, for the inspiration behind his Spring 2013 couture collection. The designer told reporters that he wanted to pay homage to Indian Gypsies, and used the colors of Rajasthan to inform his palette.

"It's glimmering, it's incredible the colors that you see, it's superb," he said of the city in an interview with Reuters. "I tried to recreate a bit of that, but more the Gypsy side, rather than the Maharaja side. It's more like couture Gypsies."

Billowing sheer capes shot through with gold thread embroidery and veils in orange, pink, and purple sat on top of a few looks. Closer to the body there were intricately beaded dresses, sheer panels of fabric, and more than one bustier that recalled the iconic cone bra the designer created for Madonna in the '90s. But the long-sleeved patchwork gowns featuring tiers of ruffles are perhaps a little more fitting for wandering souls.

As for his bridal finale look? The model who closed the show lifted up her billowing white skirts to reveal four little girls who ran down the runway to perform a dance for the audience.

Hedi Slimane's confident pre-Fall 2013 lookbook for Saint Laurent is filled with largely black-and-white images of Sky Ferreira. What better casting choice for a designer so invested in rock and roll?

As he's done with his ad campaigns, Slimane shot Ferreira's largely black-and-white images himself. The offering echoes the glamorous portrayal of '70s classics from Slimane's Spring 2013 collection, but with a refined edge. A sheer polka-dot tunic with bishop's sleeves is paired with a masculine wool overcoat in one image. In another, rounded metal studs and wide armholes give a leather shift presence. Ferreira looks like a rock star in all of the ensembles, but she's most striking in a black leather motorcycle jacket and sky-high booties.

Photos by Hedi Slimane, courtesy of Saint Laurent.

What better way to celebrate his first foray as an official haute couturier than with an explosion of pretty-in-pink tulle and a cotton-candy-colored runway? Alexis Mabille's debut Couture collection had both, plus a healthy helping of Chantilly lace, pleated organza, and silk crepe — all of which came in ice cream parlor hues to match that sugary catwalk. But it wasn't all romance and froth; the emphasis, Mabille said, was on "craftsmanship," and thus there were plenty of artisan details and expertly wielded cuts. Dresses in tulle nipped in below the natural waist and flared out from the hip in elegant flares of ruffles and tiers, while neatly tailored trousers in shiny silk made a crisp counterpoint to more voluminous tops.

Giorgio Armani continued his sleek streak with the Spring 2013 Armani Privé collection he presented in Paris on Tuesday. There were some looks that pointed back to the designer's history of appropriating men's suiting for women, but by and large this offering was filled with feminine pieces rendered from high-gloss fabrics. Some of the garments, thanks to beading, patterned fabrics, and wooden accessories, had a vaguely tribal feeling, and each look was paired with Armani's rendition of the traditional fez.

Source: Instagram User Armani

Giambattista Valli turned a fresh eye to modernist design with his Spring 2013 Couture collection. His fourth couture outing — staged at the Italian Embassy in Paris — featured restrained animal prints, wasp-waisted dresses and coats, and floral embellishments that were actually created from feathers.

Our full review will be posted shortly. In the meantime, a first look at the collection here in the gallery.

By now, no one should underestimate Karl Lagerfeld's affinity for political statements. He closed the Spring 2013 Chanel Couture show not with just one model in a bridal dress, but with two. And because they held hands as they walked down the runway — or was it an aisle? — with 4-year-old Hudson Kroening dressed as a ring bearer, some critics thought The Kaiser might be announcing his support for French President Francois Hollande's controversial proposal to legalize gay marriage.

"I don't even understand the debate," Lagerfeld told The Associated Press after the show. "Since 1904 (in France) the church and state have been separate."

But Lagerfeld didn't use the show to make a statement about equality: He also threw his shoulders behind, well, shoulders. Those wedding dresses had bands of feathers set just underneath the models' decolletage to emphasize their shoulders, and nearly every other look in the collection highlighted that part of the body in some way. The first tweed jackets down the runway, for example, had mini-capes attached to them, while others had sleeves accented by peaks of fabric set just below the shoulder. Other dressed exposed the shoulders through sheer pieces of tulle or with strategically place straps.

"The idea is to make the shoulders beautiful," Lagerfeld said in an interview with The New York Times.

But perhaps the biggest statement Lagerfeld made with this show was about nature. Some of the dresses had elaborate floral appliques, intricate beading, or delicate lacework, but none of it was more complex than the full-scale pine forest he constructed as a set underneath the glass dome in Paris's Grand Palais. Critic Nicole Phelps noted that the temporary woodland clearing was complete with birdsong — something Lagerfeld underscored with with the feathered headpieces each model wore down the runway.