"Bally is a shoe company, so it's all about a coat, long legs, and a shoe," Michael Herz said at the company's presentation today. For Fall, he and his design partner, Graeme Fidler, imagined an après-ski scenario, using blocks of fake ice to prop up their ice pick-heeled hiking booties and suede OTK boots with climbing rope detailing. If some of the footwear erred on the gimmicky side, the clothes tread more lightly on the theme. Outerwear, as Herz promised, was the focus. It ranged from a cool cropped leather jacket paneled with goat fur (it looked almost as if a vest had been tossed over it) to a toggle swing coat cut in a herringbone tweed to a blue bonded leather peacoat. Dresses in an Edelweiss jacquard and a black and white check had the same thigh-grazing silhouette. Ditto the short sheepskin frock. It sounds like a head-scratcher, but it worked.

A small room was devoted to accessories that riffed on Bally's 160-year history. There were lots of different takes on brogues, but not a conservative pair in the bunch. It looks like the company is in inventive hands with this creative duo.

BRAND: BALLY  |  BALLY OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Phoebe Philo's influence extends from the highest echelons of style—is there an editor in the front row who hasn't bought Celine's structured two-handle tote?—all the way to the high street. (At the fast-fashion stores in New York and London, her brand of minimalism rules.) Backstage, she insisted that she hasn't noticed—"Don't have time to shop," she said. Still, if what she did on her runway today wasn't an intentional rebuff to her copy artists, she's just made their jobs a whole lot more difficult.

How? By embracing the artisanal. You saw glimpses of that in her Resort collection, which featured a great big blanket poncho worn over an evening dress. For Spring, it came across most strongly in two items: a vest and a coat, both beautifully handwoven in silk, apparently by a Frenchwoman who's been doing such things for decades. Other examples of Philo's new back-to-fabrics mentality: quilting, raw canvas and denim, even the long fringe on scarves. Prints are another area of interest the designer began exploring in the pre-collection. The geometric designs—riffs on vintage foulards—had a graphic sportiness that played counterpoint to the craft.

But don't be fooled, there was plenty of that already-signature Celine sparseness—a feeling that was heightened by the predominance of white, ivory, and other pale shades. Still, Philo has loosened things up a bit. Pants are long and more flowy, with deep hems. And with the exception of a super blazer-cape hybrid, she's mostly rejected tailored jackets in favor of tunics, popover tops, and even a Baja jacket. "It's about freedom, getting away," she said of the show's relaxed, summery mood. A (just slightly) below-the-knee shift with plunging V's in front and back and a streamlined racerback all-in-one were as dressed-up as it got for evening.

There will be some who miss the urbanity of Philo's first two collections, but this show qualifies as a well-considered success in its own right. It at once expanded the world of Celine (all the way to the rock festival) and confirmed Philo's mastery of the codes of her hugely influential brand.

BRAND: CELINE  |  CELINE OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The Oscars provided an interesting case study in Valentino then and now. Representing the "then" camp was Anne Hathaway in an archival red glamour gown dating to the mid-aughts. And in the "now" corner: Florence and the Machine's Florence Welch in a high-necked, semi-sheer lace dress from the Spring haute couture collection by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli. Welch's dress walked a demure-naughty divide that the current designers have made their signature. After refining the look for evening over the last couple of seasons, they've turned their attention to day.

That balancing act might be tougher to pull off when it's light outside, but the duo came up with some intriguing propositions. The idea could be as simple as pairing a ribbed crew-neck sweater with a tiered black lace skirt, or as complicated (for their seamstresses, not for the women who wear it) as a dress that spliced a grid of lace onto leather. From a distance, a dark, blackish-red cashmere skirtsuit looked the picture of upper-crust propriety, but up close you noticed the small studs that dotted the torso. Those studs, by the way, have quickly become a new house signature thanks to the popularity of the label's studded T-strap shoes.

Chiuri and Piccioli injected newness into their eveningwear in the form of prints—feathers, lilies of the valley, and an abstract lace-check pattern. Also sounds demure, right? Wrong, the unstructured silhouette is almost as easy as a T-shirt. Welch was front-row bopping and singing along, but with its focus on glamorous daywear, this collection could go a ways to making fans of women who don't have a red carpet to walk every night of the week.

BRAND: VALENTINO  |  VALENTINO OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Lawrence, and Mila Kunis sat front-row at Miu Miu, but on the runway Miuccia Prada has moved on from last season's fascination with the cult of contemporary celebrity. Instead she offered a study of the forties, right down to the models' matte red lips and the combs holding back their hair. With its striking views of Le Tour d'Eiffel, architect Auguste Perret's 1937 Palais d'Iéna, which has never before been opened for a fashion show, proved a fitting backdrop for a modern vintage collection that transported us back to World War II-era Paris. (Marc Jacobs also touched on the era at Louis Vuitton today.)

Back then, of course, women would've worn stockings with their bold-shouldered, inverted-triangle jackets, or at the very least a pencil skirt. But here bare legs put the show's glitter-dipped sandal booties with their curving heels in sharp relief. Dresses were slim, long-sleeved, and to-the-knee and came printed with birds or white flowers like lilies of the valley and daisies. For evening, those same prints were picked out in sequins. Mink swagged the shoulders of little black dresses and, a bit more trickily, twisted around the hips of others. The models carried clutches that looked like blown-up versions of coin purses.

Afterward, someone observed that Prada looked like Miu Miu this season and vice versa. Suffice it to say that this was one of the designer's most elegant Miu Miu collections ever.

BRAND: MIU MIU  |  MIU MIU OFFICIAL WEBSITE

The Salle Wagram, a dance hall dating to 1865, suggested we were in for a different kind of Akris show than we're used to. And indeed the program notes said that designer Albert Kriemler took the Vienna Secession movement as muse for Fall. But he hardly went as bohemian or Art Nouveau as all that suggests. Kriemler is a committed minimalist: He has a light touch.

Here's an example: fur. It was there, but if it wasn't exactly flying the way it has been on so many other runways this season, that's because it was used so discreetly. A vicuna bolero worn over a cashmere coat was shorn thinly enough that it almost looked like velvet. Everything had that pared back yet still luxe feeling, from a suede and wool second-skin sweater worn with skinny suede pants to a wool jersey sleeveless dress whose only adornment was a zipper detail front to back on one shoulder. Even paillettes looked classy here, densely embroidering the hems of a shift and a dress.

Kriemler used a photo print of architect and Vienna Secession founder Joseph Maria Olbrich's Wedding Tower for an otherwise understated sheath and a floor-length cape, both in double-face wool. It's not a sure thing that the Akris woman will want to wear something quite so overt, relatively speaking. As for something that will be on her playlist, that's easy: the new additions to the house's burgeoning bag line, horsehair iPad cases.

BRAND: AKRIS  |  AKRIS OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Against a Mexican festival of lights, to the chirrup of mariachi music, Antonio Marras transformed the Kenzo show into a salute to Latin America's haute bohemia: Frida Kahlo, Tina Modotti, and the female artists who set pulses racing south of the border in the early twentieth century. Marras said the whole scenario came to him in a dream. There was a sense of that in the show, with airy volumes and dark, evocative colors. But the inspiration also fit right into the magpie Kenzo aesthetic, which always raided other places, times, and states of mind to create its own patchwork culture.

And patchworked this collection most definitely was, with leather, wool, and fur appearing in the same coat, and a long cardigan collaged from cable knit, chiffon, and lace. A blouse in paisley chiffon was paired with a plaid kilt. The general effect successfully conveyed the image of Frida and her friends playing at devil-may-care dress-up. The key silhouette was a long knit over an even longer chiffon skirt, with gaucho boots to anchor the look. Scatterings of bronze beading and sequins added texture. Marras takes the same seemingly random approach to raw materials in his own collection, but here it was noticeably more lighthearted and poppier—kind of boho light.

Marras is contemporary fashion's great romantic. Here, he perhaps got carried away: There were a few too many airy, sheer, smocked floor sweepers. It was dark relief when his own innately gothic spirit found the drama in a blood-red rose print or a black suit in beaded brocade. "I would die for you," the mariachis sang. And that's surely one sentiment with which the designer could identify.

BRAND: KENZO  |  KENZO OFFICIAL WEBSITE