Alexander McQueen kicked off the Paris Fall/Winter 2005 RTW collections with a trip to the Sixties. He exhibited an old-school glamour with an impeccably narrow gray tweed coat, a nipped-waist pencil skirt suit and a thigh-high sheared mink coat. Other designers seemed to follow his lead starting with Roberto Menichetti whose second collection for Celine was a polite take on stripped-down conservative dressing: adorning suits and coats with dyed-fox collars. All in all Celine showcased a luxe simplicity but jolted with splashes of purple fur on a blue coat or white knee length fur coat and scrumptious neck wraps.

Balenciaga was the highlight of Paris, opening the show with a much-photographed fur-trimmed felted wool coat. Nicolas Ghesquière went the route of elevated military style with narrow, boxy, chrome-buckled shapes and details including collarless black leather coat with flattened epaulets; slender cuffed boot legs and tailored denim pantsuits with big beaver collars. Next year: think Russian military wear and you’ll get an idea of the weather the designers seem to be expecting!

Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche also promoted a mood of conservative, chic restraint but he couldn’t help himself at times and gave in to rich detail and extravagances like the fluttery white chiffon dress and a cardinal coat buttoned from the models throat all the way to the floor.

Christian Lacroix did more of these conservative but lavish cocktail suits except his were made from brocades and taffetas and then adorned with unusually colored furs - strawberry fox and greige mink and cut with a Parisian flourish. I loved the stellar finale of evening dresses in eye-popping Pepto-Bismol chiffon finished with a black velvet bow, and the exaggerated colorful purple fur lapels on the suits and coats.

Oscar de La Renta showed clothes that had a similar restrained elegance but with an attention to eye-popping detail. So for instance, he decorated one cocktail dress with rhinestones and tiny bows. And then he created show-stopping coats geometric patterned with an ornate lapel and one extraordinary sheared mink coat perfect to wear with Empire line tulle princess gowns.

Hermes ended the week with one final nod to Russia. Jean Paul Gaultier was, too, taken with the season's Russian mania and made revolutionary caps in butter-soft suede and Red Guard fur hats with earflaps flying, that were super-luxurious but also feminine. His collection included lots of shearling, tailored jackets in corduroy, and fit-and-flare skirts but the highlight was definitely the hats. Zdorovye!!