Inexpensive Dresses Win Star Fans

By the standards of Paris haute couture week, a dress by French-born, London-based designer Roland Mouret is an absolute snip. This season's hit Moon dress, an updated version of the Galaxy dress that ruled the red carpet in 2005, is on sale on net-a-porter.com for £990. In most haute couture salons, that kind of money would get you a cup of coffee and a smiling but firm escort to the door.

But if the front row is anything to go by - and believe me, it is - the status of a Roland Mouret dress can hold its own even amongst the stellar company of couture week, ruled by the French and Italian giants of eveningwear: Dior, Chanel, Armani and Valentino.

Victoria Beckham, Dita von Teese and Claudia Schiffer took their seats on plain white benches, rather than gilt chairs, to watch Mouret's second collection for the RM label he created with the backing of Simon Fuller after falling out with his previous business partner two years ago. When you bear in mind that Mouret's fame began when Cameron Diaz and Rachel Weisz started wearing his dresses, this is very good news for RM.

Mouret chooses to show during haute couture rather than ready-to-wear week because, he says, the spirit of haute couture reflects his values as a designer. "Couture is about savior-faire and about quality, and that matters to me as a designer. To respect the traditions and trade of tailoring is to invest in the future of the world we live in."

The collection was unmistakably Mouret: beautifully fitted, imaginatively detailed dresses and suits that were show stoppingly sexy and also elegant and refined. After the show, Beckham picked out the Kleber cocktail dress in primrose yellow double crepe, with origami-pleated neckline and full-length zip at the back, as her favorite.

"But it's hard to pick," she said, "because really I think I want them all."