At Emanuel Ungaro, Giambattista Valli drapes the female form in tropically colored creations that scream sex. With fine embroidery and even a Buddha print, the collection is exotic and luscious and speaks to fashion's optimism. There's talk that Michael Kors is on the verge of leaving Celine. But the affable American designer is evasive; intent on being upbeat. He tells me Paris has taught him about indulgence. "Not everything has to be practical. A small percentage of things can just be fun," he says. Kors plays with Celine's iconic gold-chain print and tropical motifs, and offers up beach cover-ups and oversized duffel bags in a presentation he describes as a Gauguin meets Helmut Newton, Tahiti meets Monte Carlo.   Kate Moss, sporting dark glasses and a serious diva attitude, breezes into the Chanel show, refusing to speak or make eye contact with anyone. The ladylike collection is filled with little tweed coats and updated trenches, edges trimmed with fringe and plenty of floral prints. The crocheted coats and dresses punch up the delicate femininity that's taking Paris by storm. But as far as Jean Paul Gaultier is concerned, it's cowboy boots for spring. His sensual saloon girls strut the catwalk in faded denim, coverall dresses, ruffled tulle and plenty of corsetry. Backstage, Gaultier insists it wasn't the Wild West driving him, but rather the image of red-haired girls with freckles. The real genius of the week is Alexander McQueen. He recreates the Depression era à la Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, with models re-enacting the pain and passion of marathon dances and roller-rink racing. Model Karen Elson is especially impressive, faking exhaustion, being dragged to and fro by her professional male dance partner.

But beyond the wild theatrics, the clothes work: retro glam gowns and silvery sport separates, patchwork pieces and breezy printed chiffon epitomize the spirit of spring. Over on Avenue de Wagram, there's a whole lot of teasing going on. For his namesake collection, John Galliano haw!" he laughs. Legendary '60s muse Peggy Moffitt, with the jet-black geometric haircut and gigantic lashes, is at Stella McCartney's show. On the runway, Stella whips up breezy lightness and encourages movement with a pretty collection of chiffon pieces in sea green, dusky rose, and soft yellow. Cropped cuffed slacks come in satin, and hems are asymmetrical. Backstage, rumors of strife in the McCartney clan are dispelled when Papa Paul and his very pregnant wife Heather, try to squeeze through the mob of well-wishers. "I thought the clothes were beautiful. Stella has really matured," he tells me. Heather laments the fact that she can't get her hands of some of these clothes right now. "I'd love to be wearing some of those loose, flowing things," she says.  

At Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs is going for gold. In tribute to old world MGM glamour, he's playing with gold beaded fringe skirts and belts, and dashes of gold lamé. The gold ostrich trench that closes the show, worn by Toronto model Jessica Stam, is eye-popping. But the real story here is the handbags: Jacobs riffs on the canvas bag with smart little straps and buckles in an assortment of colors. I can just hear the cash registers ringing. It's a shining gold coat that closes the Lanvin show too -- this one breathtakingly beautiful on Linda Evangelista.  What precedes that grand finalé is strong selection of simple, dramatic pieces with unfinished edges and striking bows in the back, some of which create a kind of bustle. The look is contemporary and romantic. Tom Ford has the last word of the week. With rumors of his impending departure from the Gucci Group, which controls the Yves Saint Laurent label, Ford has decided to be true to the tradition of the house so offers red-carpet dresses, balanced by a barrage of sleek tuxedo suits.   Ford jokingly castigates me for a Fashion Television story he has just seen, in which I poke fun at a comment he has made to do with people "crying" over beautiful dresses. "I'll have you know, Jeanne Beker, that people do indeed come backstage all teary-eyed sometimes. I think it's great that we can cry over something like fashion: It represents a higher beauty that has the ability to inspire and empower people," he says. Well, I've certainly seen some beautiful dresses in Paris this week, but I refuse to shed any tears over them. After all, the key message this spring is all about being light-hearted, and feeling good, said Jeanne Beker  

 HE IS A SNOB? LET’S FOOL HIM!

We all run into him sooner or later. In my line of work, I come across him all the time, the only occupational hazard of an otherwise plum gig. Who is he? The wine know-it-all. You know, that annoying character who manages to accomplish the impossible -- turn wine drinking into something tedious. For anyone who has wanted to call the know-it-all's bluff but hasn't had the confidence or knowledge at hand to do so, now there's a handy tool. Riedel, the Austrian crystal house known for making a myriad of glass shapes to better capture each grape variety's unique flavors, has come to the rescue of hijacked dinner-party conversations everywhere with a new piece of stemware it calls the Blind Blind Tasting Glass.  Essentially, it's a black-tinted version of the company's elegant $90 Sommelier Chianti stem. It's called "blind blind" because the drinker is clueless not only to the wine's provenance but also its hue, including whether the wine is white or red. The glass's sole function? To prove just how much -- or how little -- wine bores actually know about their favorite subject. Now, you're probably thinking: Who can't tell a red wine from a white? Well, lots of people, it turns out, and not just beer drinkers.   t's well known in the wine-guessing game that a key clue to a vintage's identity is its color. The lighter the white, for example, the more likely it is to be a young riesling or sauvignon blanc. Deeper gold is often a dead giveaway of an oak-aged chardonnay. And so on.  Smell and taste have much to do with it, of course, but not as much as we've been led to think. Last year, humorist Calvin Trillin published a provocative piece in The New Yorker titled "The Red and the White: Is it Possible that Wine Connoisseurs Can't Tell them Apart?" His answer: Yes. Among other evidence, Trillin cited research by Frédéric Brochet of the oenology faculty at the University of Bordeaux. Brochet had asked several seasoned drinkers to describe two glasses of wine, both white. 

There was a catch, though. One sample had been tinted with an odorless, flavorless red dye. To the glee of wine novices everywhere, the experts were duly fooled, pretentiously describing the doctored sample with terms normally associated with red wine. "They were expecting to taste a red wine and so they did," Brochet was quoted as saying.   Over morning coffee recently at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel, I asked Georg Riedel, head of the eponymous crystal firm, about the Trillin piece. With a smile, he said he, too, had seen experts fail the colour test. What those befuddled tasters failed to pick up on, he said, were tannins, the astringent particles that come mainly from red grape skins. Indeed, the most difficult reds to identify as red are those with inherently low tannins, such as gamay and pinot noir. At home, armed with Riedel's black glass, I, too, took the test. I can't exactly call the experiment scientific, since I supplied the six wines -- three whites and three reds -- and thus knew the lineup beforehand. But I did employ the services of a colleague who did the pouring, so I was blind to the order in which they were poured. I'm relieved to report that my score was perfect -- at least when it came to color. As an added challenge, I made the mistake of offering to guess the grape. In this case, I was mostly right but did make a blunder, confusing a $10 Ontario gamay for a $23 pinot noir from France. I suppose I could cite a mitigating factor: To conduct the test properly, it's crucial to chill the red wines to near-freezing, and I did. This not only levels the playing field with the white wines, it mutes the distinguishing flavors of red wines. Still, it was a mistake that I might not have made had I been able to see the wines. To give the color-confusion theory a better chance, I switched places with my pourer, a woman with limited knowledge of wine who had nonetheless come equipped with a useful piece of advice from her husband: "Don't get too drunk." She, too, got the colors all right.  So, with due respect to Trillin, maybe the color test has been a tad oversold. But the lesson of Riedel's black glass remains useful. People taste with their eyes as well as their mouths. "I always say that a label on a wine substitutes 10,000 years of experience," Riedel said.  And who, exactly, will buy the $90 glass? Riedel has no delusions of making a killing with it. "This is purely a toy, nothing else. A pretty, expensive wine toy." More optimistically, the glass also may be a sign that wine pretension is coming full circle. "I don't take life too seriously," Riedel said. "Wine is there to be shared with friends and not to be overly serious." And so, the company that built its fortune by insisting that each grape can be enhanced with the right finely tuned stemware is now thumbing its nose at wine snobs with a black glass. And what a refreshing glass of wine it is,  according to Beppi Crossariol.

Glamour. Glamour. More Glamour. The red carpet fashions at Sunday's Academy Awards were a throwback to Oscars past as stars wore sophisticated and classy gowns, such as Naomi Watts's stunning nude-coloured Versace dress. The gown was adorned with huge teardrop-shaped crystals. "It's the Oscars and there's so much tradition, I wanted to go old-school glamour," said Watts, who wore her hair in an updo and simple, dewy makeup. Her accessories? Dainty drop earrings and boyfriend Heath Ledger, who wore a Gucci tuxedo and oversized sunglasses. Charlize Theron went with a sentimental favourite: a nude beaded Gucci gown by Tom Ford, who just showed his last collection for the label. "I've always been a huge fan of his work. I thought if he's leaving, I want to wear one more dress," Theron said.

Theron's silver purse was done by a fellow South African, Lana Marks, and her drop earrings by Chopard featured 46 diamonds and were nicknamed the Shooting Star. Many stars seemed to go for neutral colours as a way to show respect for the Oscars, said Cindi Leive, Glamour magazine's editor in chief. "It's kind of incredible how retro glam the whole thing is. ... There was nothing rock 'n' roll," Leive said. Scarlett Johannson's green Alberto Ferretti gown was "apropos for her moment in time," said Reeve Chace, author of The Complete Book of Oscar Fashion (Reed Press). Renee Zellweger again looked to Carolina Herrera, wearing a white strapless column gown with a draped bodice and back bow. She also wore almost $1 million worth of Cartier jewels, including a 73-carat oval and pear-shaped diamond necklace with a 35-carat diamond bracelet. "I loved the elegant and regal look of white on Renee," said Tom Julian, fashion commentator for the website Oscar.com. Julian also praised Susan Sarandon's black cap-sleeve, silk satin Gucci dress and Oprah Winfrey's sea foam green wrap gown by Gianfranco Ferre. But Julian said the exotic and ethnic look of Uma Thurman's white layered gown with a bolero jacket and coloured sash "wasn't exactly right on."Keisha Castle-Hughes, 13-year-old star of Whale Rider, wore a beaded whale barrette in her hair. She also gave a boost to designer Liz Mitchell from her native New Zealand in a classy, age-appropriate pink dress with Swarovski crystals in the shape of a New Zealand fern on the bodice. A sheer pink capelet was the perfect topper. "I feel like I'm floating. It's like I'm having a total out-of-body experience," said Castle-Hughes. Veteran Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo wore a red lace gown with a train by Iranian designer Simin. "I did this on purpose. My heart belongs to Iran." The embroidery on the bottom of Nicole Kidman's light green satin Chanel gown took more than 400 hours to do.

The top of the strapless dress was simple, with just a touch of lace at the top of the bodice, allowing a necklace of 195 carats of natural green diamonds custom designed by L'Wren Scott for Bulgari to really shine. Catherine Zeta-Jones raided the Versace archives to find the inspiration for her fiery red scoop-neck gown. A blond Julia Roberts, wearing a bronze Giorgio Armani gown with a deep V-neck and a gathered waist decorated with a jewel, said her new hair colour was "just for work." Other outstanding looks were Diane Lane's white gown with silver beaded cutouts, complemented by simple-yet-elegant six-carat diamond stud earrings from Harry Winston; Patricia Clarkson's high-neck, nude-coloured beaded gown by Michael Vollbract for Bill Blass; Angelina Jolie's plunging white V-neck by Marc Bouwer; and Liv Tyler's black Givenchy Couture dress with its low back and long train. For the most part, Oscar's men went with classic tuxedos -- noteworthy because stars such as Sean Penn and Johnny Depp normally shun traditional red carpet garb. This time, they showed up in Armani, said Beth Harris.