Mar 14, 2002/ FWD/ --- It's a very long way from lower Manhattan to the tony corners of Paris' 16th arrondissement, as the debut collection of Lizzy Disney for Jacques Fath underlined emphatically Wednesday morning.

Disney, a downtown designer, has won a small cult audience among fashion stylists and hip folk in New York and London with her edgy ideas. But the Jacques Fath collection she showed here today will not increase that following's number - it was so restrained, one risked nodding off.

Nor, one suspects, will she generate a new fan base for the venerable house of Jacques Fath.

The show opened with an elegant slide projection on a silk backdrop with photos of Fath in his party-going prime and a 1950s image of the Place de Varsovie, the square in which this show was staged.

Following that, however, Disney, 30, who graduated from St. Martins in the same year as Stella McCartney, seemed more awed than inspired by the prospect of designing for Fath.

There was the occasional interesting item - square-cut camel hair coats with boxy collars, a pretty beige cashmere twin set, and a neat little ecru shearling bomber.

But these were slim pickings in a collection lacking in inspiration and oomph.

Jacques Fath by Lizzy Disney

Jacques Fath by Lizzy Disney

Jacques Fath by Lizzy Disney

Jacques Fath by Lizzy Disney