The AP reports from PARIS:

Backstage was front-and-center Saturday at Jean Paul Gaultier's spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear show, where the models changed on-set and even the dressers took a lap on the catwalk.

It was a novel approach, but perhaps one that would be better suited to a public of fashion-hungry novices than a roomful of industry insiders for whom backstage holds little mystery or interest. Tack on the fact that the said roomful of fashion editors, stylists and journalists had to wait nearly an hour after the scheduled start time in a room that felt like an oversized oven and you have a recipe for disaster.

Thankfully, the clothes measured up to the genial French designer's habitual brilliance and were the saving grace of the plodding, overheated exercise. Continue reading.