Lagerfeld Show Woos Young

It can be difficult to ascertain the difference between one couture collection and another. All those jewel-encrusted dresses can blend into each other, like endless royal portrait paintings in a stuffy museum. So to understand the difference between the labels, it is wise to look at the celebrities the designers haul in to their front rows.

At Valentino on Wednesday night, Ivana Trump and Martha Stewart contentedly watched the streams of heavy dresses marching past, all of which would be perfect for their ladies-who-lunch lifestyle. By contrast, yesterday at Chanel, the designer Karl Lagerfeld brought in Kylie Minogue.

This was a clever move on Lagerfeld's part because the reason couture often feels like a dying art is because the clientele is, well, not so young. The clothes can be quite frumpy.

But Lagerfeld opted for an extremely young collection, with almost all the hemlines, even that of the last wedding dress, ending mid-thigh. Some sleeves were cut high up on the shoulders and there were over-the-knee boots.

How many twentysomethings will be able to afford to spend £50,000 on a mini-dress will remain to be seen. But it made for the sweetest show seen all week.

Mini-tweed skirts were pouffed outwards with matching jackets, and dresses were, as is de rigueur in couture, heavily jewelled but prettily so, such as the mini-dress which had thick-jewelled violets along the piping.

Kylie arrived with the three essential celebrity companions in tow: her stylist, her mum, and her dog. At least the first two were particularly taken with a long black chiffon gown scalloped with silver sequins - a perfect dress for a returning celebrity, and an ideal advert for couture's occasional youthful appeal.