Spring in Paris : Fashion: Christian Lacroix shows at home while others go to the Louvre. But everyone’s looking to California.

The first thing to say about Christian Lacroix’s spring ’91 collection is that he showed it in his salon, rather than in the tents set up in a Louvre courtyard where most designers show.

Every season the audience at Lacroix watches from gilded wooden chairs with red velvet cushions in a room whose walls are colored a deep orange.

This is one step short of inviting everyone home for dinner, which the French are notoriously slow to do. And it allowed the audience a better look at his new collection, which balances Lacroix’s love of costume with the practical matter of wearable clothing.

Jackets were narrow and fitted close to the body, many with romantic, curved necklines. Daytime suits had short sleeves and slightly bell-shaped skirts. Body suits were not the focus they were in the designer’s fall collection. Narrow shorts under elongated tops, and dresses in trapeze, blouson or baby-doll shapes interested him more.

Fabrics included rich pastel silk prints, lightweight wools, some of which were embroidered, and nubby tweeds. Several were Lacroix’s own fabric designs, including a hand-painted abstract print he calls his “Hommage to the Marquis,” a reference to Italy’s aristocrat designer, Emilio Pucci.

This season’s evening suits included one in brocade with a lingerie lace hem and one with an embroidered floral jacket and silk floral print skirt.

Metallic sandals, flat-heel silk shoes, short leather gloves with gold charms at the wrist, sheer elbow-length black lace gloves, heart-shaped brooches, small, structured handbags, and chandelier earrings were the main accessories of the season. Lacroix’s favorite skirt length was mid-thigh.

The house of Chanel is especially relevant for Southern Californians this season. The surfboard that one model carried down the runway was one clue. It accompanied a series of what looked like Chanel wet suits, in warm shades of blue or green marked off with black grid-like stripes.

Some of the best ideas in this collection by designer Karl Lagerfeld appeared in his own signature collection.

Leggings topped by short skirts split high on the sides, worn with fitted tailored jackets, had a place in both collections. So did pastel print leggings worn with oversized matching print shirts. The Chanel versions have more black binding, gold buttons and gardenia brooches attached. The Lagerfeld signature look features asymmetric layers of fabric, lower necklines, and fewer squared-off edges.

This was not the Chanel collection of a lifetime. But it worked. Jackets were elongated and usually solid colored; skirts were narrow and short. Leggings added a new look when worn under suits--as in an aqua-colored suit with hot pink leggings.

Eveningwear was resort-like, with bodysuits under sheer wrap-and-tie ruffled skirts.

At the House of Balmain, London-based Alistair Blair showed his first ready-to-wear collection. And Eric Berge showed his second collection for the House of Lanvin. Most of these long-established French couture houses are hoping to revive their reputation by injecting their collection with new talent.

But they are off to a shaky start. Blair played it too safe, showing knit dresses without much spark, conservatively cut suits in floral prints, and black crepe evening dresses with lingerie lace that looked as if they’d been inspired by Chanel, rather than Lanvin. (Blair worked with Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld for several years, when he was designing the Chloe collection.)

Berge’s second collection for Lanvin is better than his first but the clothes looked too old-ladyish, even for old ladies to wear.

Big collars and cuffs, wide boxy-cut jackets and skirts that erred on the conservative side of classic were matronly mysteries considering that Berge is not yet 30 years old.

There were a few hopeful signs in both collections. Time will tell.

Christian Dior designer Gianfranco Ferre continues to search for the balance between his style and that of the legendary designer whose footprints he has been trying to follow the past three seasons.

In a few cases there appeared to be a meeting of the Dior and Ferre minds. You could see it in the basket-weave coat dress with a petticoat skirt and a wide patent leather belt, the Shantung silk jeans with suede tunics in colors such as rose and melon, in the black swimsuits that are bodysuits with elegant asymmetric necklines under long white robes, and a crisp pale gray romper with white piping.

Otherwise, the search for clothes that blend the two talents continues. Heavy black tuxedo suits, and the billowing coats that overpower the tight satin jeans underneath, were among memorable problems in the collection.

The question of exactly how to restore an aging couture house and even whether to restore it, is under hot debate here.

Asked to comment, Pierre Berge, business partner of Yves Saint Laurent, said, “I’ll close the haute couture division permanently the moment anything happens to Yves Saint Laurent. The original designer is the heart of a couture house. Naming anybody else is a grand joke.”

Beatrice Bongibault, Dior corporate chief executive officer, said, “We’ll see what Mr. Berge does when he’s really faced with decision.” (Projections are that Yves Saint Laurent will be a $1 billion business by 1998.)

Christian Lacroix said he would love to take the role of renewing an old label. And he noted, “It’s easier when the designer is long dead and his image has been lost over the years. Then a young designer with strong ideas can be a good thing.”

And Rose Marie Bravo, CEO of I. Magnin said, “It’s been proven that if a designer is not alive, a brand can be developed. Sometimes it takes a couple of years.”

Karl Lagerfeld, who has restored Chanel to its past glory was flippant about the matter. “I am a success at Chanel because people are crazy for Chanel right now, that is all.”

(Not likely. Reports are that the American house of Norman Norell recently offered Lagerfeld the job of creative director there.)

Many designers attended a press conference on Monday where plans were announced to construct a permanent fashion exhibition space at the Louvre. It will be a multimillion-dollar project completed in 1993 and designed by the architectural office of I. M. Pei, which built the glass pyramid that serves as the main entrance into the Louvre.

Three times this week the photographers burst into a chorus of “Marseillaise,” from their standing-room only positions at the far end of the fashion runway.

This is never a good sign. It only happens when a show is so late in starting that the men and women behind the cameras are fed up. They want an army of fashion models to storm the stage.

It finally happened an hour after curtain call at Sunday night’s Sonia Rykiel show. Otherwise, things went off without a hitch.

Rykiel is faithful to her original idea about clothing--that it should be comfortable, common-looking and made of wool or cotton knit as an added convenience for women who travel.

Two clean sporty looks stood out: a deep rose-colored crew neck and matching jacket over wide-leg white pants, and white ankle-length hooded dress over matching wide-leg pants. This outfit is part of a small group of linen styles. The dress buttons up the back, but Rykiel showed it unbuttoned to expose the back.

Katharine Hamnett also elicited a chorus from the photographers before her show began. This is the second time that London-based Hamnett has presented a collection in Paris, which she has explained by saying that the British fashion week simply does not draw the same numbers of retailers and press.

Outfits such as her two-piece swimsuit with matching Capri pants help explain why Hamnett’s clothes are popular in California.

Bodywear is still her strength, including dresses that wrap the figure like a mummy, sheer sarong skirts over matching red briefs, and slip dresses that truly do slip--models couldn’t keep the straps up.

Hamnett, who always attaches an ecology-minded cause to her show, is promoting an anti-pesticide program for agriculture. Invitations to her show included this message: “Green cotton by the year 2000.”