Report from the Couture Front (Row)

Fashion continues to be an internecine battleground: the spring/summer couture collections in Paris and Rome were the Pouf Wars. Patou's Christian Lacroix led his crusade with bubble dresses stuffed with tulle, tulle, and more tulle. (Churchill would have said, "Give us the tulle, and we will finish the job.") Ungaro, fashion strategists agreed, won the Battle of the Bulging Balloon Sleeves—hands down. Dior H-bombed. At Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld's mannequins marched down the runway to "You're in the Army Now," but then suffered a Crinoline Crisis: some of the ball gowns were so voluminous they made an easy target. At Gianfranco Ferre in Rome, MX-size suit tops caused illustrator Joe Eula to comment: "Think of this as an 'athome' collection—there's no way you can get these clothes out the door."

Only those veteran generals Valentino and Saint Laurent rose, sheathlike, above the mushroom clouds of ruffles and bustles. They skirmished on the conventional haute couture front line: the front row. Valentino marshaled his movie stars: Sophia Loren, Ursula Andress, Mariangela Melato, Marisa Berenson, and Liza Minnelli, the last escorted by multimegaton Burt Reynolds. Saint Laurent countered with Catherine Deneuve and the quick-fire Zizi Jeanmaire, but his really big guns were the political wives: Mme. Mitterrand and Mme. Chirac, sitting front and center, with only peaceful Paloma Picasso as a demilitarized zone between them. Beside the usual YSL defense alliance— Rothschild, Rochas, Schlumberger, and Ravenal—he had two potent new offensive weapons, Lally Weymouth with Lamia Khashoggi in her explosive daytime diamonds.

Neutral observer Susan Gutfreund had requested fourth-row seats at YSL for her and her French negotiator, Jayne Wrightsman. But Mme. Gutfreund was hors de combat, felled by the real killer of the collections—the Asian flu.

Bob Colacello