Big Bertha pantaloons, sensual Eastern robes, corsair pirate coats over lacy skirts -- Balzac's ghost must have been howling as a gust of 19th-century Romanticism whipped through the spring 2003 collections.
Mention ''romance'' in fashion, and automatically your mind reels back to Cartier-Bresson's images of wartime lovers locked in neck-breaking kisses. But if you want to click with modern audiences, if you want to fill them with a sense of wanderlust in an age gone stale with brands and shop openings, then you have to go back further -- to the mid-19th century, when much of the world still lay unexplored and romantics were tricked out in exotic splendor.
That's exactly what Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen did on Saturday; they located the source of fashion's quest for individual expression in the spirit of adventure that moved the 19th century. The nomadic heroines in Lesley Blanch's 1954 biographical tetralogy, ''The Wilder Shores of Love,'' which was reissued this year, could have well served as the basis for the unfettered emotion in these collections. Indeed, the book held such meaning for one fashion editor, the late Beatrix Miller of British Vogue, that she was said not to hire anyone who hadn't read it.
Mr. McQueen, a born romantic, could scarcely have chosen a more primal setting to make a point about the fierce blending of contemporary cultures than the Amazon jungle. To a howling soundtrack, and against a scrim illuminated with painted faces, he sent out waistcoats ladled open over frilly blouses, loose swashbuckler trousers in linen, and embroidered tailcoats over flounced chiffon skirts. The cut of the clothes embodied the savage arrival of Western marauders in a natural setting -- here a sequined undershirt raked open at the sides, now a rigid top of woven brown leather.
Yet everything kept surging forward. Mr. McQueen's brilliant stroke was to connect the past and present through the triumph of nature -- in tropical paradise colors that now spread, like a drug-induced haze, on fluttery chiffon dresses.
Mr. Gaultier said after his stellar show, which had models swinging lazily from trapezes, that he wanted his clothes to appear suspended in air, ''like the mobiles of Calder.'' But to look at his extravagant figures striding out in braided waistcoats with silk mutton sleeves and low-slung sailor pants was to imagine Balzac, or George Sand, in Eastern regalia.
Sneakers, latched up to the knees with straps, came out with tattoo-print stockings and frisky chiffon miniskirts. A long silk baseball jacket, embroidered on the back with Asian flowers, shrugged over a minidress in electric blue taffeta. Mr. Gaultier reprised a number of styles from his July couture show, including those athletic kimonos, and attempted to defy gravity with skinny trousers that barely clung to the models' rears. He took some good-natured grief about that from Bette Midler, in town with her friend Jann Wenner, who's here to promote the new French edition of Rolling Stone. Ms. Midler, who admired Mr. Gaultier's more upright sailor pants, also had a fitting for one of his couture dresses.
The French shows keep stacking up the cordwood of expectation. Nicolas Ghesquiere's needlelike silhouette for Balenciaga left an unambiguous point: here is the most precise statement a modern designer can make about female strength. Mr. Ghesquiere cut expertly to the chase, with slim high-waisted pants worn with snug tops. He, too, sees beauty in nature -- in vivid prints that make you think you're watching an aquarium. Is there something about SeaWorld this season that entrances designers? In any case, his electric-pool tops are just quirky enough to become a telltale badge of cool next summer.
Giambattista Valli sent out his best collection for Ungaro since taking over the ready-to-wear design of the house. He whittled away much of the familiar Ungaro excess, concentrating on soft leather jackets that had a careworn look, strap-laced pants that hinted of bondage, and a great vintage display of loose print tops and embroidered ponchos that younger fans are craving; retailers, too.
For his own collection, Lagerfeld Gallery, Karl Lagerfeld finessed the question of what to wear under this season's revealing skirts. He just put denim cutoffs under his pale chiffon dresses and had his models come out with one hand tucked in a jean pocket, as if their dresses were T-shirts. It seems an improbable notion, but he treated everything so lightly that it worked. Denim shorts also appeared with tailored jackets, including one cut like a sailor top and worn a silver sequined T-shirt.
Phoebe Philo's collection for Chloe hugged the shores of the Mediterranean, another 19th-century haunt. Loose cotton tops, delicately edged with broderie anglaise, spilled over rolled shorts in faded khaki. Black silk dresses were dotted with pearls, while a white leather bolero, its back constructed in a lattice weave, swished with long fringe. Ms. Philo made everything look casual, but each element was polished with grown-up sophistication.