"We absolutely intend to continue as planned. It's our responsibility to go forward, though clearly security will be a major concern," Chambre president Didier Grumbach told FWD.

He added that the Chambre had received calls from several New York designers about the possibility of showing in Paris, but declined to say which ones.

"Of course, we would do everything in our power to help anyone from New York who wanted to show here," Grumbach stressed.

Yves Carcelle, president of the fashion division of LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate that controls a dozen fashion brands, said he was focused on people and not collections.

"Apparently all our staff is okay. First we focus on people, and any of their family problems, and then we focus on any future business conditions. We are not thinking of shows today," Carcelle said.

He added that two LVMH retail outlets had been destroyed in the attack: a Sephora store and a Thomas Pink boutique that was due to open next Monday. "Fortunately, all the staff was able to get out on time. That was the key thing."

Grumbach noted that Paris had been forced to develop tougher security procedures in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris.

"We've had to deal with this problem before, though obviously nothing compared to the scale of this horrible attack," the Chambre president said.

In the mid ‘90s, Paris was rocked by a series of bomb attacks on the RATP, its mass transit underground system, by Algerian extremist.

Grumbach has called a meeting of all the producers of Paris fashion shows for Friday to develop tighter security at the Paris collections, scheduled for October 5 through 13.

Senior fashion executives in Paris applauded the decision to cancel the remainder of New York fashion week. "They had to stop the shows. How can you party and sit at a fashion show at a moment like this?" said Ralph Toledano, president of Chloe.

Toledano plans to beef up security at Chloe's October 10 catwalk show. "I've scheduled a meeting for tomorrow with our security people. Whatever budget they need to make security as tight as possible they will get."

"We in Europe have been there before. Not on such scale clearly, but in terms of living with the threat. We've tightened up security, become more alert and gone on," the Chloe president said.

"It's hard for America to realize what has happened, how it ever happened and why. I believe that people would like to think that the people who did this thing were crazy. The problem is they aren't. They are conditioned by their culture, which makes it a lot harder to change," Toledano added.

"We are still in a state of shock," said Marianne Tesler, president of Givenchy. "It was absolutely the right and appropriate decisions to cancel the shows in New York under these circumstances."

"Right now, we are really thinking more about the people concerned affected by this terrible event rather than thinking about security. It's horrifying,' Tesler said.