Paris Fashion Week prepares for Balmain fashion festival

By THOMAS ADAMSON
AP Fashion Writer

PARIS (AP) — Paris Fashion Week roared into full gear Wednesday, with glitzy shows and growing anticipation of Balmain’s evening fashion festival spectacular, a charity concert featuring the latest fashions, member of the public and secret celebrity performances. Meanwhile, Courreges showed its latest designs on a circular sandy runway featured a falling column of sand at its center evoking the sands of time. Even before the events, the fashion houses compete to produce the most elaborate and attractive invitations, delivered by couriers around Paris. This year, Loewe’s was a tropical flower, kept alive by a state-of-the-art humidity capsule.