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Runway Review

Runway Review

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Runway Reviews

Wild Ending

Ralph Lauren's new watch collection made its Parisian debut at a party at the designer's Avenue Montaigne boutique last night. And joining co-hosts David Lauren and Paris Vogue's Carine Roitfeld was quite the selection of catwalkers: Natasha Poly, Iris Strubegger, Raquel Zimmermann, Vlada Roslyakova, etc. As is often the case when models mingle with men of means (these timepieces can go for upward of $50,000), flirtation was rampant. In fact, one guy asked every pretty girl in the store if she'd like his card. Our favorite overheard response: "Sure, I'll take your card—your credit card."

Meanwhile, at the Valentino headquarters in the Place Vendôme, it was time to party. "The crowd is young and they're ready to dance," declared Carlos de Souza, the irrepressible public relations force who just returned to the brand. So what if Bianca Brandolini d'Adda, Lauren Santo Domingo, her sister-in-law Tatiana Santo Domingo, Dasha Zhukova, and Fabiola Beracasa admitted they couldn't pick the house's new designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, out of a lineup? With music courtesy of DJ Julio Santo Domingo, smoking permitted, and seemingly bottomless buckets of Champagne, the fête went into the wee hours—or more specifically, until the police insisted that the windows on the Place Vendôme be shut. "This is the new era of couture and the new era of Valentino," the French actress Joana Preiss proclaimed. "And I like it."

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French haute couture was in the Paris spotlight yesterday, but American designers were the men of the hour at a pair of parties. Oscar de la Renta breezed into town from the English countryside for a fête at L'Eclaireur hosted by his consultant and jewelry collaborator Loulou de la Falaise Klossowski. "The chicest women come to Paris," the designer said, pointing to girls like Lauren Santo Domingo and Coco Brandolini, who joined him and a gaggle of models wearing looks from his Resort collection. "But I see Coco in my stuff a lot more than Lauren," he smiled. De la Renta's wife, Annette, also made an appearance, though she snuck out of the party to do some shopping. "It is so hard to focus on one thing, isn't it?" de la Falaise Klossowski teased the designer, and then acknowledged that the temptation to shop is all but impossible to resist in her hometown: "You can't help it here."

Later, Calvin Klein creative directors Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli threw a dinner at Apicius, a stunning restaurant in Paris' seventh arrondissement that boasts a candle-filled garden under a canopy of green. "Isn't this heaven?" Thandie Newton asked as she made her way down the drive to join the likes of Claire Danes, Olivier Theyskens, and Astrid Muñoz. Zucchelli won the CFDA Award for menswear last month, but there was no official reason for the celebration. "Just to have fun," his womenswear counterpart, Costa, explained. And fun Costa did have: Fresh from a holiday on the beach in Saint Martin—"or was it Saint Thomas? Or St. Bart's? Whatever," he said, "it was a nice beach!"—the designer was happy to show off his tan. "There's no tan lines, I promise. Here, I'll show you!" He was only bluffing—we think.