Animalinspired collections roam Paris catwalks

Paris Fashion Week Which have world class popularity. The scene was tamer. With its winter 2010 ready-to-wear display, the French label delivered a sober but well-tailored collection of suits and leather looks. Dutch duo Viktor & Rolf gave stiff a good name with their tromp l'oeil collection that solidified flowing Greek drapery. Stella McCartney played with opacity and transparency in a sexy, lingerie-inspired collection that also included cruelty-free alternatives to fur and leather. French label Leonard delivered kicky knit silk and wool dresses in the house's hallmark hothouse flower prints. The oversized orchids in royal purple and hot pink would have been right at home in Arora's fanciful tropical kingdom. PARIS (AP) - Peacocks strutted their stuff on Paris' catwalks Monday, as Italian Giambattista Valli sent out red-carpet ready looks covered with glimmering feathers, and wildly inventive Indian designer unleashed a fantastic menagerie that included a Swarovski crystal-encrusted version of the proud bird.

GIAMBATTISTA VALLI

Toward the middle of the show, you thought you'd seen some nice things at Valli: the tent-shaped coats that swung just so; the leather jacket with bouffant, fur-covered sleeves.But then came the peacock feathers. Thousands of them, covering coats, dresses and skirts, their cobalt eyes shimmering wildly as the photographers flashed.One strapless dress, in a metallic peacock print, had feathers fanning out from its neckline. A black turtleneck was paired with a flowing, ankle-length skirt made entirely of the feathers.Valli said he had taken his inspiration from the late, great French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent."I was attracted to that decadence, with no boundaries, no rules, all that eclecticism," he told reporters backstage in Paris.Valli, a former designer at Emanuel Ungaro, launched his own label in 2005 and made a name for himself by dressing starlets like Mischa Barton and Victoria Beckham.There were plenty of red-carpet-ready pieces on display Monday—from a long, lean belted dress in a print that gleamed darkly like an oil spill or bouffant, high-water trousers in a rich aqua blue."It was amazing, I want it all," gushed celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe as she gave Valli a celebratory post-show squeeze.

MANISH ARORA

Picture "The Jungle Book" remade by "The Fly" director David Cronenberg and you can begin to envisage the bizarre menagerie of oversized beasts in hothouse hues that Arora unleashed onto his catwalk."The idea was to take everybody on a journey to my jungle, where I belong," Arora told Associated Press Television News, though the collection looked like less like a product of human ingenuity than something beamed down by stylish aliens or hatched in a petri dish.Peacocks glinting with Swarovski crystals emblazoned a tunic, a moose-head made from what appeared to be superimposed wooden planks emerged from the belly of a dress, while a nearly life-seized bird of prey—entirely covered in crystals—perched on the shoulder of another dress.The knobby fabric of a cocktail number mimicked a lizard's spiny skin, though the eyes that gleamed out from the bust of the garment were something entirely more menacing. Paris' ready-to-wear displays move into their seventh day on Tuesday, with shows by Chanel, Valentino.