Paris Fashion Week: The best of the rest from the men's runway

Since Paris Fashion Week served up more noteworthy menswear collections than we had time to discuss in depth, and the Haute Couture shows are now on the fashion world's center stage (soon to be followed by New York Fashion Week), here's  a notebook-clearing laundry list of the ones that got away:

Lanvin

The Lanvin collection telegraphed its duality with a soundtrack that abruptly cut between '70s-era country music and futuristic thumping techno beats. So too the runway was filled with both extremes: skinny-legged pants interspersed with generously cut trousers, technical outerwear pieces such as puffer jackets and bombers followed by double-breasted jackets, and other pieces that combined the best of both ends of the spectrum. But there was one constant -- many looks were topped off with the wide-brimmed hat that had become one of the "it" accessories of the men's fall and winter 2011 shows.

Yves Saint Laurent

"Take me back to England" were the first words we could make out from the soundtrack accompanying

Fall 2009: Dior Homme strikes a pose, says 'relax'

What a difference a year makes. Last January, when Kris Van Assche made his runway debut as the new creative director at Dior Homme, it was accompanied by the swelling strings of music commissioned from the Wim Mertens Ensemble of Belgium (whose  11 members performed the piece live, atop pedestals), and the vampire chic collection was inspired by the image of the noble chevalier and the chiaroscuro style work of Dutch photographer Desiree  Dolron.

This season the soundtrack was mixed by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, and the inspiration was a bit more -- how shall we put it? -- mainstream.

“Some of the inspiration came from voguing,” Van Assche told me backstage after the show. I had to ask him to repeat it a couple of times partly because even though he speaks better English than I do, the Belgian-born designer's accent made it sound like "frogging" at first, and partly because once I understood the word, I still found it hard to comprehend. The storied House of Dior was drawing inspiration from an early 1990s club scene dance craze best remembered by Madonna's song and video "Vogue" ("Don't just stand there/let's get to it/Strike a pose/there's nothing to it.")

Van Assche explained: “That was a period when there was some time for lightness and some happiness, so I used the skills of the atelier to take the DNA of Dior -- the black suit, the white shirt and black tie -- and treat them with a little bit of lightness and happiness."