It was to be about contrasts between matte transparencies and opaque origami folds, gravity and lightness, flesh and chic, white, and white… and white, supported by some black, with a touch of silver here, scarce thin blue stripes there and one semi-hidden hint of red.

The opening micro trench coat came back throughout the collection in various more or less elaborate expressions of classic Parisian chic. Whether the Céline customer will want to buy yet another trench coat for spring 2007 is a bet I would not make, unless it has now become a classic summer piece that women are ready to renew every year, just before they buy their bathing suits.

The theme started to show through with an organza short worn on a cotton gabardine pencil skirt. This tracing paper wrap-up effect was meant to be the designer’s main research about lightness. It was declined in many a piece.

Although it is no real original creation in itself, it was reinterpreted here with origami folds, mainly round the neckline. Where another couturier seems to have expressed, a few seasons ago, the elegant and fragile nature of femininity with his delicate visible seams on the same fabric in black , Ivana Omazic’s visible darts and hems weigh down her jackets, shirtfronts and coats, oddly missing what they were aiming at.

The silhouettes presented nevertheless conveyed modern woman’s strong image, particularly when cinched in a belt of leather worn on the ouside of a suite or coat. Some flesh was nevertheless the rule here, where legs are allowed to be sun kissed throughout the day with shorts, dresses and mini-coats alike, or on some jerseys treated like second skin.

The numbers in which the designer forgot her theme a little were more convincing. And the simple and less fussy kind of clothes shown here will no doubt sell, because they are simply a modern interpretation of French chic.

Quite enamoured at first with the sleeveless trench dress in champagne veal, its many trench-coat details (double row of buttons, belt-like with buckle asymmetric shoulder strap etc., were too literal reminiscences of Gaultier’s characteristics to be a flattering tribute and really praised.

The standout in the collection could be the look worn by Ekaterina Kashintseva. A high waist dress in silk organza playing with several layers of fabric on the bosom, and worn under a simply tailored organdi coat embroidered on its sides with a new material: blank slides! Delicate and geometric in all its meanings, it expressed sensuality without ostentation, transparency and protection, etherealness and sophistication.

The show produced by Yo Events was otherwise perfectly staged and conceived with good vibes of music by no less than Charles Schillings himself. However, the volatile parachute silk, the cloud-like taffeta or iridescent faille supposed to be the main actors in this play could not fully perform their part as the uneven design script never really made the audience fly on clouds of style.