The Inter-Aeon Game

In its second week of spring and summer showings, Parisian haute couture managed to sashay back to the hip-flask era, blast off into far-outer space, and keep fashion pundits' necks swiveling as if they were covering an inter-aeon Davis Cup match.

The hip flask was passed by Captain Edward Molyneux, making his return to fashion at 71, after 15 years devoted to painting. His collection evoked memories of the days when Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence and the Duchess of Kent--all faithful Molyneux clients--were Everyman's symbols of feminine elegance.

Molyneux is a curious hybrid. An Englishman whose line is Arc de Triomphe, never Marble Arch, he is the Parisian equivalent of Manhattan's Mainbocher, a classicist devoted to the soft look and tailored line. Let others raise hems to the heavens; for Molyneux, knee-length skirts are no less "absolutely vulgar" today than in 1928, when he first said so. The new Molyneux collection was unabashedly oldfashioned, and it drew both snippish sniffs ("Typically British," deplored the London Daily Telegraph) and soulful sighs ("The style and taste are still there," cooed the Daily Mail).

Designer Andre Courreges, by contrast, showed a collection that was more like a countdown, with models' hair cropped to the cranium, their faces often masked behind huge white plastic goggles, and a display of far-out fashions that swung down the runways to the way-in beat of progressive jazz. As befits the designer who is known as the idea man of the Paris collections, Courreges came through with eye-poppers aplenty--flesh-colored leotards beneath embroidered net slacks, ten-gallon hats, skirts cut three inches above the knee--gimmicky, but none of them too gimmicky to detract from an integral purity of line and shape.

Other designers' offerings ran true to form: Gres' intricate chiffons, Castillo's long slim crepes, Capucci's stiff white collars. Pierre Cardin still reigned as Lord High Poohbah of Limp, displayed a group of floppy fashions and judged the season's loveliest. But with the Big Three--St. Laurent, Balenciaga and Givenchy--still three weeks away from showtime, the season was less past than prelude. The shape of things to come may still be drastically altered--but so, of course, can dresses already ordered.

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