John Galliano wins plaudits for Russian look at Paris Fashion Week

Much was expected of John Galliano at Paris Fashion Week, and his winter ready-to-wear collection (pictured), which took its inspiration from old Mother Russia, did not disappoint. After watching the models parade his array of peasant blouses, embroidered skirts and hip-waisted military coats, the model and actress Milla Jovovich, who was born in Kiev, announced: "It was like some opening into a doorway of dreams in Russian-Ukrainian fairy tale fantasy dreams."

"Each look was more elaborate than the next," wrote Jenny Barchfield for the Associated Press. "An ultra-voluminous vest in embroidered gray felt was paired with an equally voluminous skirt which was layered over churidars that gathered a riot of voluptuous folds at the ankle. Add a coin-covered headdress and towering platform shoes with an ingenious cutout base and you begin to get the idea. Other skirts, made from what appeared to be boiled wool, were sculpted through their extra-wide hips."

At the end of the show Galliano took his bow on a catwalk covered in snow - well, foam - wearing riding boots, a swashbuckler coat and a tri-corner hat. Film producer Harvey Weinstein, who has seen a trick or two in his time, was impressed. "It was fantastic, theatrical, brilliant," he gushed.

In stark contrast to this extravagance, Chloe’s design director Hannah MacGibbon, just one year into the job, presented a traditional yet appealingly feminine collection. Suzy Menkes, writing in the International Herald Tribune, said the new line’s "hippie sweetness” recalled the era when the 1970s moved to the 1980s - “a legitimate fashion rummaging ground for this brand, which had its heyday in that period."