Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2009 Collections

Darlings, let's get our hoity and our toity on and take a front row seat for the Spring '09 couture collections (or at least some of them). Remember, if you have to ask "Who would wear that?" you're going about it all wrong. Just think of it as high-end art. Is it pretty? Striking? Does it move you or tell you something about the designer?

All quotes are from style.com. Grab a cup of coffee. You'll want to click through on all the pictures to see the entire collections.

Elie Saab
"It was, of course, eveningwear as usual (the world hasn't changed that much), this time with a smattering of obi belts and a slight sense of Japanese styling inserted here and there. That produced some pretty rear views, as when bows were planted at the base of bare backs and kimono-sleeved negligee coats were shrugged on as cover-ups. Highly worked fabrics like brocade and cloque and deeply textured 3-D chiffon appliqués gave a bit of hefty upholstering to some silhouettes (the pannier hip padding on a couple of pieces only added to the borderline mother-of-the-bride effects)."

Not really our thing. The silhouettes and the color palette do little for us. They hit it on the head with "mother of the bride."

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Christian Dior
"There are only two questions anyone is asking Paris couturiers this season: "What are your inspirations?" followed swiftly by, "And what do you think about the recession?" John Galliano's answers were "Flemish painters and Monsieur Dior," and to the point, "There's a credit crunch, not a creative crunch. Of course, everyone is being more careful with their discretionary purchases. I am. But it's our job to make people dream, and to provide the value in quality, cut, and imagination."

We ADORE this collection. Beautiful colors and shapes and witty, witty, witty.

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Christian Lacroix
"Little drummer boys, chichi soubrettes, Belle Époque madames, southern Mediterranean exotics: All these stock Christian Lacroix characters lined up and wound their way around his carpeted runway for Spring. In that sense, the collection was much as it always is, though that's also to say just as laden with layered delights and surprises. Lacroix has relaxed into a groove in which all the imagination he's developed and knowledge he's accrued over 22 years seem to flow out of his fingertips and into effortless collages of pattern, color, and personal references."

Sometimes Lacroix heads off into clown clothes territory and, truth be told, he's not far off here. Let's just say he can see the outskirts from where he's standing.

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Chanel
"From a distance, the collection was disciplined into simple planes, the silhouettes cut in an A-line tapering upward to meet cropped jackets with flat, squared-off shoulders and standaway collars. Close up, though, the minutiae became mind-spinning. The classic Chanel braid was minimized to millimeters of handwoven fluff and the embroidered flowers modernized in weightless 3-D montages of organza and cellophane. The paillettes were microdots of matte plastic, and the lace shivered with tiny crystalline beads."

Beautiful but bordering on clinical. It's crisp and structured and has a beautifully tailored folded-paper quality to it that perfectly suits the Chanel name. The cut-paper headpieces are gorgeous.

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Armani Privé
"As designers begin to sound out what women will want during a severe recession, many of the resonances are coming up thirties, a time of glamour against the odds. That's not to say that a Giorgio Armani collection could ever be anything but his own style, or that in this season it could be anything but clearly directed toward the imminent Academy Awards, but there was something in the chinoiserie of it that did spell Shanghai in the thirties. It was there in the pagoda-shouldered jackets; the lacquer reds; the tasseled fastenings; the Chinese-cabinet florals; and the tight, hobbling silhouettes of the decadents who populated the city then known as "the Paris of the East."

Beautiful colors, severe silhouettes and a wide range of fabrics. Drama collection - and pretty fab. When people use "Shanghai" as shorthand to describe a look or a collection, it's usually a lot more literal than this. This looks fresh.

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Jean Paul Gaultier
"His conceit was to take scrolling, curlicued calligraphy and abstract it into fine-lined prints, fishnets, and embroideries, and marry those with the strong-shouldered, sometimes pinstriped tailoring he introduced in the eighties. On the back screen, an image of a pen-and-ink flourish appeared in motion, going through strange computer-generated distortions. After a while, the penny dropped: It looked like the patterns used on bank notes."

Of course everyone has been talking about Inès de La Fressange, the third model. She's 51, and in the '80s became the first model to sign an exclusive modeling contract with Chanel. Bitch is still rockin' it.

As for the collection, it was understated and had a nice weight and maturity to it, if that makes sense. It bordered on a little dull at times but it definitely felt like recession couture to us.

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Valentino
"If not exactly literal throwbacks, the cream suits with stand-up sixties collars, fan-pleated coats, draped red dresses, and stately bejeweled ensembles of crystal-embroidered coats over chiffon spelled La Dolce Vita, loud and clear. It was all very cautious, and so very ladylike that today's skinny young models looked strangely out of place in such womanly designs."

There were some stunning coats in this collection. Somewhat restrained and understated, it still boasted gorgeous, rich colors and beautiful fabrics in classic silhouettes.

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[Photos: WireImage/style.com/firstview.com/nymag.com]