From left: Armani Privé, Lacroix, Dior, Givenchy, Chanel

Would he or wouldn’t he?”

As the haute couture 2010 collections began last Monday in Paris, this was the question. The “he” on everyone’s mind, however, was not a member of the G8; nor was anyone thinking about whether or not climate control regulations would be agreed. Rather, it was designer Christian Lacroix, who filed for bankruptcy protection last March but announced that his show would still go on, though it was unclear how. Answer: in a much reduced form, thanks to friends and couture stalwarts such as the embroiderer François Lesage, who worked for free – and accessorised by the question, “would you or wouldn’t you?” get a ticket, as only half the usual number of journalists and customers were let into the halls of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.

Once there, they were treated to a pared-down exposition of Lacroix’s art, from the elegant mini trapeze coats to the perfectly draped navy column dress held by one diagonal beaded strap and finished by a single red bow on the back of the opposite hip. And they were left wondering: if someone who can render a dress with such subtle perfection can’t make this business work, who can?

It was a question that formed the subtext of the week. Should couture go big or small? Subtle or over-the-top? These days, this particular niche of the fashion industry seems as volatile in its identity as the price of oil. When the rest of the world is busy doubting the rationale for your existence, a show is effectively a public argument for your worth. But how to make the case most effectively?

Last week designers tried a number of different strategies – and often, as was the case with Elie Saab’s “archi-couture”, and Christian Dior’s “dress and undress”, at the same time. The results of such a mixture were, predictably, mixed.

At Saab’s show, for example, new rocketship shoulders exploded oddly into familiar ruffles, and signature bugle beads carved out startling geometric planes. At Dior, under John Galliano, highly structured bright orange or fuchsia wool jackets, with the tiny arms and exaggerated peplums of the past, topped garter belts and stockings; and tulle princess ball skirts sprinkled with bejewelled flowers and infanta-style overdresses were matched with girdles and bustiers.

Galliano has done both over- and under-dress before, so this seemed an amalgamation of greatest hits, a show of mastery at a time when reliability and the security of the known are at a premium. But, though recombination can occasionally yield a true epiphany, this time the two techniques did not add up to more than the sum of their parts, a problem also apparent at Valentino, where designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, in their second couture outing, embraced “contradiction”.

“We wanted to show how the Valentino woman today was both delicate and dangerous, fragile and powerful,” they said before their show of all-evening, almost all-black looks, built on nude corsets overlaid with various elaborate and occasionally overegged combinations of lace, ruffles and fur. But while a laudable move towards their own vision, the attempt was only partially successful: smart when a chiffon trapeze tunic shadowed a lace body-conscious mini-dress, and questionable when a skirt trimmed in fur tassels turned to reveal a pigeon-like tulle pouf at the back.

Meanwhile, at Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld went both short and long, with skirt suits where jackets sprouted long flaps providing a sort of portable backdrop for the models’ legs via contrast linings, and beaded mini-dresses turned floor-sweeping at the back. This was an interesting technical exercise – can you abstract the idea of a man’s tailcoat to create any woman’s garment? – and successful when employed in asymmetric overdresses cut on the diagonal to reveal inner gowns. But mostly, and when applied as chiffon tails under tulle ballet skirts or sequinned tunics, it looked as though the model had got a shirt stuck in her waistband by mistake.

Such experimentation is not bad – it can be brave – but it also runs the risk, here occasionally incurred, of looking silly. It is a trap Armani Privé likewise tumbled into with the attempt to hit two sartorial notes at the same time: sportswear and slinky-wear.

Witness satin warm-up trousers with crystal-lined zips at the ankles; velvet “hoodie” jackets and a series of diamanté all-in-ones that would have suited Céline Dion in Vegas. Combining comfort dressing with the red carpet is a good idea but not if decoration suggests discomfort. By contrast, at Jean Paul Gaultier, a similar push/pull between Hollywood’s golden age and the street was well realised in silver sequinned dungarees, left slouchy and genuine, and a “denim” velvet halter, the seams picked out in silver thread – though the attempt to make Barbarella evening wear via latex corsets dripping strands of silk bombed.

Better at marrying futurism with traditional couture tropes was Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci, who sent out an army of Valkyries of the apocalypse in draped jersey and velvet jodhpur dhotis under cowl-neck tops trimmed in gold pyramid studs, white boiled cashmere jackets over gold-sequinned chainmail undershirts, and a strapless studded white gown sliced to show its black undersoul. It was almost triumphant, until the Wagnerian overtones outweighed the designer’s coolness of touch.

The harmonious union of contradicting forces is an elusive thing, so perhaps it made sense that it was achieved only once – and then not on the catwalk but at a presentation given by industrial designer Marc Newson and high jeweller Boucheron. Together they created a diamond and sapphire necklace that looked sort of like fireworks, but was actually based on fractal theory: the idea that certain shapes in nature, when sub-divided, display infinite self-similarity – broccoli, for example.

It’s science, but not as most people know it; as Newson said, it is “a crazy, crazy piece of engineering” – “engineering” not being a word normally associated with the fine jewellery world. Yet here it was absolutely accurate, and full of possibility. Which is really the point, after all.

vanessa.friedman@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/friedman