Film stars steal the show from Lacroix

THESE are the clothes that no one saw because they were all too busy watching the movie stars playing at being fashion editors and photographers in the front row.

This was far more fascinating and absorbing than the action on the catwalk at the autumn winter Christian Lacroix show.

Poor old Christian Lacroix. His ready-to-wear show was completely upstaged by another version of ready-to-wear, or Pret-a-Porter, the title of Robert Altman's latest movie which is causing all the hoopla at the Paris shows, where it is currently being filmed.

Lacroix could have done anything; he could have produced the worst collection of his career and it would not have mattered because all the attention was focused on the new stars of the front row. Lauren Bacall, playing a fashion doyenne; Kim Basinger as a glitzy American television journalist; Tracey Ullman looking kookie because she is playing a British fashion hack and Stephen 'The Crying Game' Rea, a cool cat in black shiny suit and shades because he is playing the highest-paid fashion photographer in the world.

You could not have missed Sophia Loren, whose decision to wear Dior to Lacroix was a fashion faux pas, but you could have missed Julia Roberts, the main star. The star of Pretty Woman plays a rookie reporter, so does not have a front-row seat. This makes her more difficult to spot, as she blends in with real fashion hacks who were more overdressed than usual.

(Photographs omitted)