Lagerfeld’s tubular belles chime with Paris fashion crowd

It was Karl Lagerfeld's turn to wow the fashionistas at the Paris couture shows on Tuesday, and he took over the Grand Palais to do so. Dominating the show was a vast steel sculpture of organ pipes – a theme he continued through the clothes themselves, right down to sequined tubes which decorated wrists and hems.

Lagerfeld’s favourite cover girl Claudia Schiffer was in the front row, along with actress Patricia Arquette, Paris-based singer Micky Green and supermodel Kasia Smutniak.

After the monochromes of Chanel, the new Christian Lacroix collection was all in vibrant colour, with the models wearing their hair pinned up in punkish mohican styles. Lacroix summed up his look for next autumn-winter as "short and sexy but well-bred".

The couture collections continue today with Jean Paul Gaultier and the debut of Alessandra Facchinetti, the new designer at the helm of Valentino.