A Covered-Up Balmain Has Us Wondering: What Will Kim Kardashian West Wear Next Season?

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Wearing her usual Balmain finery as she arrived at the house's runway show in Paris this afternoon, Kim Kardashian West was so snugly encased in a dress made of full-body fishnets that she looked roughly like one of those macrame plant holders from the 1970s. Her near nudity was such a spectacle, enhanced by the accompaniment of sister Kourtney, mom Kris Jenner, and Corey Gamble (mom's boyfriend), that the photographers would not stop. Carine Roitfeld, seated to Kim's right, turned her head away to avoid the flashes.

"I'm the wallpaper," Roitfeld said as she tried to fade into the background with the rest of us.

As Paris Fashion Week rolls on in a surreally leisurely fashion, with almost no sense of urgency and even less sense of decency, would you believe that Olivier Rousteing chose this moment to go with a more covered up look at Balmain? Not all of it, mind you, but most of his collection played up draping with glitzy swags, with big-shouldered wrap-around jackets shown in circus stripes and snakeskin. Reptile was a big theme for Rousteing, who worked that motif into a jacquard and even a knit cape. He had so much snake happening that there was little room left for skin, besides one dress with a sheer top maybe, which raises the question, what ever will Kim find to wear next season?

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At Chloe, Clare Waight Keller is usually in her element with a spring collection. The house's charming lightness is better suited to the season, so it was little surprise that her show was filled with winners.

My favorite pieces were a white cotton dress that closed with rows of elegant covered buttons along the side, something that looked almost antique in its construction, and what will easily be the T-shirt of the season, almost the idea of a T-shirt really, a loose white cut with short sleeves that seemed to almost melt away.

Keller's oversize proportions--seen on a cool navy pullover with a drawstring waist, and flouncy dresses, and even the sleeves of a white suit--looked terrific on the models, but I worry they may prove challenging to wear for mere mortals.

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With the shows here spread out over nine days, the energy tends to come in spurts, thankfully from some of the younger designers who combine great music with zippy clothes, like at Carven, where entire stories were printed onto blouses, or at Paco Rabanne, where Julien Dossena introduced a collaboration with graphic designer Peter Saville that included T-shirts printed with words like "Futuresex" and "Canned Candies."

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