If good manners means starting your fashion show on time, Marc Jacobs has become the fashion equivalent of Emily Post. Scolded by critics for his notorious tardiness in previous seasons, he now aims for precision, by golly. This afternoon we received an e-mail from the press contact: "The show will start at 2:30 p.m. sharp." Well, I arrived sweatily at the courtyard of the Louvre at 2:10 (I wanted to leave time to get to my seat, but that meant hauling it on the metro), and bless Jacobs’s SpongeBob-loving heart, the bleachers were practically empty. So the show did not start on time, although granted it wasn’t Jacobs’s fault.

I imagine it was the slushy weather. With horrible rain, traffic was slow and taxis impossible to find. (Sometimes being a lowly metro rider has its advantages.)

Anyway, being a bit early meant I had time to chat with Stacey, and also Mickey Boardman from Paper magazine. Mickey whipped out his camera and showed me pics of his excursion to the Jeff Koons exhibit at Versailles this morning. And guess who had been his museum buddy? Ikram!

The Vuitton show was spectacular. It was interesting that Marc Jacobs used several Edith Piaf songs throughout the show. The similarities between his life and hers are clear, both of them having struggled with addiction. I don’t think he would have employed such emotional music if it weren’t a very special collection.

I’m making it sound heavy. It wasn’t. While waiting for the show to begin, there was a running soundtrack that mashed up classics like "All That Jazz," "Hello Dolly," and The Muppets theme song. The production definitely had shades of that theatricality we saw in New York three weeks ago at the Marc Jacobs show. A lot of the same silhouettes, and those obi belts.

But this collection was all about Paris glamour. Later in the evening we had Lanvin, which I also truly loved, but Vuitton was the collection of the day.

Photography: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton