Go Navajo. That was the message from Isabel Marant, who shifted her focus from last season's California surfers to Native Americans on the runway today. Hey, as they say, it's the land of opportunity. Marant may be French to the bone, but she's embraced of late the kind of sportswear we're known for stateside: jeans, sweaters, sweatshirts. Season to season, she just shakes up the surface treatments. Given her reference point, we're talking about printed and real feathers and miles and miles of fringe for Fall. "And because wherever Indians are, cowboys aren't far behind," she joked backstage, "there's lots of denim."

That denim came in the form of patchwork button-downs and vests and dark-washed oversize jackets that read more gangsta than cowboy, but it's the white jeans with the red and black Navajo embroidery that could be contenders in the season's It item sweepstakes (the satin baseball jackets from Marant's Spring collection have that honor this week in Paris). The news on the runway included masculine overcoats made from a dense blanketlike wool, and she gave shearling a hip edge by treating it as a practical layering piece under hardworking parkas.

Ultimately, though, too much here read costumey—see the suede dresses at the end of the show—even if Marant probably has a hit on her hands with those fringed wedge-heel boots.

BRAND: ISABEL MARANT  |  ISABEL MARANT OFFICIAL WEBSITE

You might be sick of reading the fashion term "urban warrior" (we are), but the fact remains that, come winter, women are instinctively drawn to a way of dressing that's sleekly under the radar and yet slightly tough, practical, and protective. Certainly a commercially minded powerhouse like Barbara Bui knows this, and while her show today didn't break any new ground, she did a fine job of interpreting that tendency her way.

To start, there were voluminous, high-collared aviator coats—right on trend, pieced together in shearling, mohair, patent leather, puffed nylon, and bouclé—over slick, asparagus-skinny pants. From start to finish, the outerwear was what made the headlines here. There were great motorcycle jackets with zip-off fur hems that created a nice skirt effect. And Bui certainly saved the best for last in a series of tight-shouldered shearlings neatly delineated with bouclé bands and a cool, ombré metallic finish. But a girl, warrior or not, cannot live by coat alone. (Though a drop-dead chic one can score you a lot of mileage.) There was, curiously, an evening slant to much of Bui's indoors-wear. Maybe with a preponderance of black clothes, a leap to black-tie gear seems logical? Still, something like her great draped, buttery-looking leather tunic and pair of black pants might be almost as clever an investment.

BRAND: BARBARA BUI  |  BARBARA BUI OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Ah, the seventies. At the moment it's the decade with a ripe popularity level roughly equal to that of Anna Dello Russo making her way through the Tuileries. But for 32-year-old Alexis Mabille it holds the lure of childhood nostalgia, even though he was born too late to experience it firsthand. Some boys never forget their first fashion loves: In Mabille's case he name-checked Anjelica Huston and Nan Kempner.

That duo's louche and lean sensibility is somewhat at odds with Mabille's effervescent cuteness. Squaring the two was his obvious task at hand, and a point of difference when using less-than-original source material. It was evident in the sweet little hits of color you got through pastel piping on jersey wrap skirts, languid twinsets, collarless coats, and flowing Halston-esque silk gowns, and even a turtleneck worn under a square-cut tunic dress. And, of course, the bows. One was worked into the back collar of a black smoking like a little gift. But the smartest Mabille touch here was all the little covered buttons, especially when seen in profile running down the side of a sleeve or trimming a hem.

One reason this era boomerangs back into fashion so frequently is that there's something forever modern-looking about it. But that element was missing here in the overwrought look of suede-fringed scarves, heavy tunic shapes, and paisley prints. It's not that you couldn't pull out great pieces, but the big picture was probably best left as a sweet memory.

BRAND: ALEXIS MABILLE  |  ALEXIS MABILLE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The sunny mood of the Milan collections? It was au revoir to all that on day two of Paris fashion week. A few hours after Balenciaga's teddy-boy girls strode out this morning, Christophe Decarnin was putting twenty-first-century proto-punks on his Balmain runway. They wore biker jackets studded and safety pinned to the hilt; tight, bleached jeans or shredded cut-offs; and holey T-shirts to match their torn fishnet stockings. "It's a look I've always liked," the designer said backstage. "I keep pictures of it all over my office."

With his brocade pantsuits and gold leather mullet gowns, Decarnin went glam baroque last season. This collection felt more in keeping with his previous Spring show: plenty couture (someone had to attach those safety pins to that white leather bustier one by one, presumably), but with a seriously offhand result. The message on the soundtrack—first, Frank Sinatra crooning, then Sid Vicious croaking "My Way"—would seem to indicate that this is what Decarnin prefers doing. That single-mindedness always gives his clothes energy to burn, but the question will be: Is Balmainia still so strong that women will shell out the serious bucks that a crystal- and metal-studded jacket is going to cost, when the look is so DIY? (After all, she could, as one editor sharply put it, pick apart a Perfecto, re-stitch it, and save herself $25,000.) We'll have to wait and see.

BRAND: BALMAIN  |  BALMAIN OFFICIAL WEBSITE

It may have been his best collection yet—it was undoubtedly his most elegant. With today's show, Rick Owens scaled new heights in his pursuit of purity. It was a master class in balance and proportion, perfectly colored to match, in complementary layers of taupe, gray, brown, ivory, and black. From the moment Daphne Groeneveld walked out onto the runway in elbow-length gloves and a floor-length skirt, her head wrapped, a cape thrown back over her shoulders, the show was a vision of the kind of glamour that sparked Owens' interest in fashion in the first place. True, the hoods, snoods, and capes harked back to the sisters who've populated the designer's catwalk in the past, but here the holiest of orders came from Hollywood on high. One model in a mink cape might have been headed to the Warner Bros. lot. And Owens referenced Charles James, the fabulous but flawed American couturier whose career he once dreamed of emulating, with jackets and coats whose padded sleeves looked like angels' wings.

They were the one significant example of volume in a collection where Owens wanted as narrow a silhouette as possible. So the shapes that are his usual signature were pared away. This loaned a new precision to his work, which made it easier to appreciate his cut and proportion. With typical aw-shucks modesty, he insisted his key look wasn't much more than a wrap skirt with a T-shirt and sweater thrown on top—the kind of casual, slightly grungy look he himself does so well. The merest glance at—let alone touch of—the clothes put paid to that idea.

Still, Owens might have been reminding us that his success is entirely on his own terms. As overwhelmingly chic as the collection looked, it was still recognizably Rick: Its building block was, after all, a pair of shorts with a crotch so dropped they might as well have been a skirt. Under a long knit tunic and a shorter jacket, they certainly looked like one.

BRAND: RICK OWENS  |  RICK OWENS OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Unlike his fashion showman peers, Gareth Pugh never gives his collections a title or clarifies a theme for them. He sees his work as a single seamless flow of ideas that expands or contracts to his bidding. His Fall collection might have been a contraction—or at least a consolidation. After several seasons of experimenting with film in collaboration with the budding genius Ruth Hogben, it was time again for Pugh to remind his audience of the physicality of what he does. In other words, it was showtime.

Pugh's support team is so attuned to him, you feel they could do this in their sleep—Matthew Stone contributed the gut-rumbling electronic soundtrack, Simon Costin created the futuristic-yet-primal backdrop, Alex Box did the mutant makeup ("spectral light" was her guideline). And Pugh provided the clothes: the tabard shapes, the strictly defined jackets cut on the square that fell away into points, the broad-shouldered pieces in bonded or articulated leather—all of them in Stygian black. This language is his and his alone, which is striking in one so young (he'll be 30 in August). It is also so defined that it is sometimes difficult to see how Pugh can grow it. Fall confirmed clues. Fluidity has become his friend. So has color. A black sheath with a cobalt blue cape attached was one of the show's strongest pieces. And Pugh may even have relaxed enough that he can now accommodate humor. The menswear in this show featured young models with torso-limning tops that erupted into chiffon pants with the flowing volumes of a floor-length skirt, or a parish priest's robes. It was, in fact, boyhood memories of the latter that inspired Pugh. The same wry religiosity probably accounted for the cross composed of intersecting zippers on the flaring, leather-sleeve dress that opened the show. That kind of detail suggested Pugh toying with his status as Crown Prince of the Fashion Goths.

He then dispelled the gothic gloom with a finale that armored his models in gold. Karlie Kloss was a fallen angel in her capelet, dress, and leggings. Why Pugh's men looked priestly when his women looked pagan might be the stuff of a thesis—or a film treatment, if Ruth Hogben doesn't already have enough on her plate.

BRAND: GARETH PUGH  |  GARETH PUGH OFFICIAL WEBSITE