It is a quaint old custom, but Paris haute couture collections traditionally close with a wedding dress. Yves Saint Laurent chose yesterday to update the tradition by having his bride elope.
Given the costs of a haute couture bridal gown, I am sure the bride's parents would have been heartily relieved to pay for a less expensive but very stylish 1950s-inspired ecru satin suit with a long pencil skirt and tightly cinched waist.
The outfit closed not just Saint Laurent's collection but the haute couture fashion season on a high note.
Saint Laurent attacked his spring/summer collection with renewed vigour, perhaps relieved of the responsibilities of the ready-to-wear, which is now owned by Gucci and designed by Tom Ford. Saint Laurent wanted to prove there is still energy in this veteran couturier.
He did so not just by the number of outfits, 105 (most houses produced 40) but also by the breadth and detail of his vision.
There were gangster trouser suits with trilbies that opened the show, an elegant 1950s section of sand- and straw-coloured pencil-slim suits worn with black lacquered coolie hats and a pretty passage of frothy white organdie blouses beaded with cherries, strawberries, oranges and lemons, which were modelled with matching earrings.
He avoided his classic Le Smoking and concentrated on colourful printed silk garden party dresses and girlish white frilled party frocks.
Although he could still conjure up the diva look when he wanted to. A large white gazar opera coat sprouting white ostrich feathers was pure Hollywood, if only the movie stars still led such a life. Marlene Dietrich would have loved it.