Old Guard, R.I.P. : The Diors and Valentinos Look Downright Hokey Next to Up-and-Comer Demeulemeester

French fashion will never be the same.

The great names that shaped French style over the past 40 years finally, indisputably, have been replaced by a younger generation. Christian Dior, Emanuel Ungaro and Valentino, along with Yves Saint Laurent, continue working in their usual way. But it would be a shock to see anything new in their collections. If they pick up on a trend, as Valentino did with his version of the Edwardian dandy this season, it almost seems quaint--like watching someone’s grandmother try to keep up with the times.

It would be a service to everyone if we simply assigned these designers the title of “honorary chairman.” At least it would take some of the frustration out of watching their shows.

The troubling question of why these men do nothing to move fashion toward the future seems irrelevant once it is understood that no one should expect them to do so. That job is the work of younger designers.

“They aren’t the cutting edge,” Neiman Marcus CEO Terry Lundgren said of the old guard. And neither are most of the women who wear their labels.

“Those customers have paid off the mortgage, put the kids through school and reached their peak income,” said Lundgren.

What matters now is how well members of the old guard apply their particular strengths, and how smartly they adapt their best looks to each season.

In Dior’s case, not very well. At least not for fall, 1993. The best of Dior designer Gianfranco Ferre’s collection included an ankle-length cardigan sweater over beige riding pants and a quilted silk blazer. The worst was a pair of beaded black motorcycle goggles and a necklace jangling with house keys worn over beaded black knickers and a short pink tunic. That outfit deserved a special category. “Mission Impossible” comes to mind, since actor Peter Graves, who starred in the TV series, sat in the front row at Dior.

Valentino played to his strengths, crafting glamorous suits for day. Black or dark gray wool jackets had velvet collars and cuffs. They went over mid-calf-length skirts with a soft ruffle in back. He showed most jackets with crisp white collars and cuffs underneath. Picking up on Edwardian themes, he added wide satin bow ties to some collars, and he finished outfits with velvety top hats.

His evening dresses were not so good. Most suggested corsets and petticoats, a look that is way too tired.

Ungaro moved his show from the tents at the Louvre to his studio on Avenue Montaigne, with its beige stone floors and red Persian-carpeted staircases. It was part of what he described as “a new era,” in a press bulletin he sent out earlier this week. He promised, “to progress, to invent, to innovate.”

Not.

Men’s pin-striped pants with women’s silk print blouses and printed jackets were one of the simpler daytime looks. A floral print blouse and a paisley skirt, worn with a hat on top of a scarf, was one of the more complex. It was old Ungaro set in a new place. Away from the tent at the Louvre but not from his long-established style.

New York-based Oscar de la Renta cut his first ready-to-wear collection for the Pierre Balmain label this season. Veteran fashion watchers noted that the narrow suits with belted jackets, and a black dinner jacket with a white satin bib-like inset, were true to the late Balmain’s ‘40s style. But De la Renta did little to recast the Balmain image in any bold new way. He did supply a good number of pretty, wearable-looking clothes.

Hold any one of these collections up against fashion’s cutting edge, and the clothes are downright hokey. Still, to know this and wear them anyway could be the best revenge for women who love quality craftsmanship but not the latest trends. There is little danger that these purchases would soon be out of date.

Londoner Vivienne Westwood, who is known for her unerring sense of where fashion is headed, helped make a case for hokey classics in her show. For fall, she took what have become the dinosaurs of British design and gave them new life.

Tartan kilts, gray flannel suits and royal-blue velvet gowns got turned on their arched eyebrows. The kilts were a brighter shade of blue, and some of them were minis. Hand-knit sweaters, a staple of the British Isles, had a generous peek hole just above the bosom. And what looked like a demure floral-print scarf tucked into a jacket turned out to be a blouse with a gold mesh back and sleeves. The platform heels that went with most outfits were so high that model Naomi Campbell fell off hers.

“British cloth has a whole set of associations,” Westwood said of her “Anglomania” show. “Red wool for fox hunting, melton (wool) for school uniforms. Playing around with all of that is like playing around with an empire.”

While Westwood played, Claude Montana burned. Or maybe the word is smoldered. His show started with a new version of a peacoat that is cropped to a very wide A-line shape. It ended with a series of white chiffon shirts whose hems just showed beneath elongated black jackets. Their romantic Edwardian details ranged from velvet collars to graceful swallow tails. These jackets, worn with fluid pants, were among the most beautiful evening outfits of the season.

Karl Lagerfeld peeked back at the Middle Ages, to see what is behind many young avant-garde designer collections for fall. He came away with some head gear that Darth Vader might have worn King Arthur’s court. It fit like a rubber skull cap, longer in back and scalloped along the edges. A point in front formed a sinister widow’s peak. Lagerfeld also borrowed the dark, sooty colors of the new avant garde.

Jackets were the highlight of this show. Long and tunic-like, worn over matching wool jersey skirts, they picked up on the knitwear idea that is everywhere for fall. The shorter versions, with fitted waistlines and softly saw-toothed edges, flared over very narrow skirts. Some of the skirts had Gothic arches, filled in with sheer black tulle. But those arches soared so high, most women would feel too much of a draft wearing them.

“Dinosaurs, all of them” said Herb Fink. “The clothes are difficult, exaggerated and too theatrical.”

Seventysomething Fink, who owns the Theodore boutiques in Los Angeles, was talking about almost every Paris designer over age 30. He and others here this week are much more interested in some fresh talent shooting up from below the pack.

The most talked-about names are not even French. Marcel Marongiu of Sweden showed a collection of dark, ankle-length skirts, oversized rib-knit sweaters, sleeveless jackets, long coats with drawstring hems, and some dark plaid pieces mixed in. All of it went over heavy, flat-heeled, lace-up boots, the key accessory of the new avant garde. Some of the clothes were unraveling at the hems; others, such as a skirt that didn’t quite wrap around the body, were incomplete. The look was graceful but depressed.

Amsterdam-based Ann Demeulemeester set off a sensation when she showed in Paris last season. This time she kept the look very much the same, but changed the colors from black and gray to black, deep red and ivory.

She creates unexpected proportions by putting shorter jackets over longer vests. Her monastic dresses are often collarless, in a monochrome patchwork of shiny and matte fabrics. There are no decorative details or added bits of anything. And she makes her sleeves so long they cover the hands.

Belgian Martin Margiela gets credit for leading the new pack of designers. His cleaner’s bags as overcoats, his dresses with sleeves ripped out, his jackets with seams and darts worn on the outside, and his preference for ankle lengths, surfaced in a number of the “new-generation” shows this season.

“The Demeulemeesters of the world could be the beginning of a new direction,” said Fink.

They stand a better chance of growing to full height in Paris than any new designers in the past four decades.