Must We Really Go <i> There</i> ?

PARIS —  We see Paris. We see France. We see super-models’ underpants. All this talk about refined clothes. Since when is it proper to show your, you know, everything? The low point for transparency was white bikini briefs seen through a sheer black gown at the otherwise impeccable show of Christian Dior. Helmut Lang’s solution, opaque red tights worn under stretch white lace skirts and dresses, was simultaneously trashy and covered-up.

Dispatches From the Real World: A Claude Montana jacket from the fall collection costs 17,000 French francs, about $3,700, at his Left Bank boutique. . . . For about $7.50 you can cruise the Internet for half an hour on one of the terminals wired up at the Virgin Megastore Cyber room on the Champs Elysee. . . . A Courreges wool turtleneck, with the other double C logo, will set you back 600 francs, or about $125.

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What Ever Happened to: When an awkward new skirt length, just below the knee, was introduced last year, many women responded, “I’ll never wear that.” Looks as if they’ll never have to. It has all but disappeared on the runways.

Take This Idea and Steal It: At Chloe, Karl Lagerfeld showed orange shoes, with a navy dress, with a yellow suit, with black and white outfits. At Herve Leger, red sandals were worn with bandage dresses in pastel stripes. What a concept--a bright-colored shoe as a new kind of neutral.

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Model Watch: No new standouts have emerged this year, but American Sibyl Buck, who has been modeling in Paris for two years, was busy. While Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier liked her at her punkiest, most of the designers preferred that she leave her nose ring at home. Jewelry is not the model’s most attention-getting feature. That would be her intensely red hair, which seems to be getting redder by the minute. Now it’s Ronald McDonald red. The color is a rather strange choice, because Buck’s face resembles that of one of history’s most famous blondes-- Marilyn Monroe. Her abundant underarm hair, however, is dark brown.

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Baubles, Bangles: A retrospective of jewelry by the great Jean Schlumberger opened at the Louvre Museum of Decorative Arts with a party thrown by Tiffany’s. Joan and Jack Quinn of Beverly Hills loaned a number of remarkable pieces to the exhibition, and went to Paris to see them on display. Other vintage Schlumbergers on view included a pin from the collection of Elizabeth Taylor and a minauderie belonging to Mrs. Paul Mellon.