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"Really, we didn't call Karl and Raf," Pierpaolo Piccioli, who, with Maria Grazia Chiuri, designs Valentino, said with a laugh.

It would be O.K. if they had, since the Valentino clothes owed their pure lines and filigree embroidery to garden architecture — mazes, terraces, curling ironwork — from the Renaissance. Traced in piping on a cream evening cape or embossed on the stiff skirt of a wool day dress, these patterns are gutsy. They also link Valentino to Italian culture.

What Mr. Piccioli and Ms. Chiuri have gained over the last couple of years at Valentino, after a rocky start, is control over their form. This collection has, among other qualities, a strong sense of line, so that the cut and finishing of, say, a caped dress or a deep red strapless gown, stand out.

The designers are learning to use the extraordinary skills of a couture atelier to be more self-critical and demanding. In just two seasons at Dior, Mr. Simons has used its workrooms to further his ideas and expand his thinking. Mr. Lagerfeld is miles ahead of everyone. He sketches every design, and then turns those sketches over to the women in charge of Chanel's ateliers, who know how to interpret his drawings. He is able to get precisely what he wants.

That precision of thought, in a business of compromises, is the virtue of couture, and it's what Ms. Chiuri and Mr. Piccioli are closer to acquiring. It was evident in their morning-light palette of creams, light tan and pearl white, and in their lace pieces. If the Valentino designers can relate emotionally to Italian stone and iron, they may have found a vital creative key.

A garden is nothing if not the promise of continuity amid change — the change of colors and seasons, the impertinent arrival of weeds and drought. The garden goes on. By showing some of the same styles he first introduced at Dior, like a sharper Bar jacket trouser suit, Mr. Simons was essentially putting in his hardy perennials. Let's put it another way: the Chanel cardigan jacket has roots deep in the Paris soil. So does the Bar, but it needs to be cultivated. Mr. Simons is starting that process.

The remarkable thing about this collection, aside from its colors and ultralight layers, was how easily it introduced asymmetry without pushing the "It's unwearable!" button. More than a decade ago, John Galliano brought deconstruction to Dior. Everything was upside down and pulled apart. It was great, but how many people actually wore the clothes the way he showed them?

Mr. Simons's idea is clearest in a suit. Consisting of three pieces, it has a cropped sleeveless jacket, a stiffened camisole with a Bar peplum and a slim skirt with a contrasting hem. There are four colors in all, four fabrics. Each shape is incredibly simple, but it's the proportion of the shapes, along with the cuts and layering of colors, that makes the suit completely different. I hesitate to say that it redefines the suit, but it sure comes close.

"The idea is to make the shoulders beautiful," Mr. Lagerfeld said. Some of the built-out collars of suits and dresses will not flatter every figure, but filling in necklines with white sequined yokes certainly puts the face in good light. Chanel's misty forest, which also featured dresses with blood-red flowers against a black embroidered ground, provided a warm note of melancholia. It's an underrated mood in fashion, creating a richness only for those inclined to embrace it.

Observing a cream chiffon gown plumped at the bodice with pale gray feathers, I remarked to Mr. Lagerfeld about the gray.

"But it would look flat if the feathers were only white," he said.

Indeed. The same could be said about many things.

The other spring couture shows were good, but not as inspiring. Giorgio Armani put tension into his tailoring, with closefitting silk pants and smart jackets alternating with sexy tops. Baton-shaped ornaments wound into garments were inexplicable, but the jostle of chevron stripes and micro jacquards made a distinctive statement. Donatella Versace also emphasized shoulders in a collection that joyfully subverted pinstriped power suits by repeating the pattern in neon minkand metal mesh. The techniques were impressive.

Although Giambattista Valli had some sweet fabrics, his molded shapes looked trapped in couture aspic. He's capable of a modern attitude. Which is exactly what Bouchra Jarrar showed with her skimmy dresses, an ink-plumed corset and her standout coats in houndstooth and ribbed gray silk.