Fashion gets a modern makeover

Paris fashion week always makes heads turn. Two events that took place during this year’s extravaganza, which concluded on October 4th, made it dizzying. On September 29th a crocodile-skin Hermès handbag became the priciest ever to be auctioned at Sotheby’s. It was the apotheosis of old-school luxury: timeless, leather-bound and, at €352,800 ($346,800), eye-poppingly expensive. The next day Coperni, a French fashion house barely ten years old, showed off luxury’s whizzier side by spraying a nearly nude supermodel with an ingenious and animal-friendly material that coalesced into a snug white number (see picture).