PARIS, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Jean-Paul Gaultier's ready-to-wear show for next summer on Tuesday was a celebration of dance and movement, which brings clothes to life.

"Movement is crucial. For me clothes on a hanger are just a still life," he said after presenting his collection, which opened and closed with a performance by three dancers.

Gaultier, who has just designed the costumes for "Snow White" with Angelin Preljocaj, and worked with other choreographers, notably Regine Chopinot, showed swimming costumes with built-in capes which could be deftly turned into dresses, skirts tied at the waist, worn with little tank tops, and fluid gowns with cinched waists.

"Dancers have a very interesting relationship with clothes...they have a way of appropriating them and giving them a different dimension," he explained.

Actresses Milla Jovovich and Beatrice Dalle and cabaret artiste Dita Von Teese were among the front-row celebrities applauding the show.

Manish Arora collection ss 2009 Photo : François Guillot/AFP

Earlier Tuesday India's Manish Arora transported his audience to the big top for his show, appropriately presented in the Cirque d'Hiver.

As self-styled ringmaster the designer with a penchant for everything larger-than-life sent out his models as clowns with whited out make-up and conical hats and real acrobats following them around the stage.

His eye-catching opening number was a dress with a carousel skirt complete with candy stripe poles which actually rotated.

All the razzamatazz of the ring was there in his colourful circus-inspired costumes, from sequinned jumpsuits with star-bursts on their padded shoulders and knees to cone bra tops and flounced jackets over micro-shorts and dresses with trains of ostrich plumes.

The workmanship was a blend of traditional Indian mirror work and whorls of intricate hand embroidery with high-tech digitally printed sequins. His signature prints inspired by circus posters were encrusted in crystal beads.

Some devotees wore their Manish Arora outfits to the show, demonstrating how his bold designs can make the transition from podium to street.

The creative team at Issey Miyake went on an expedition to the rainforests of South America and surrounding cities to track down colours which truly reflected the diversity of the natural and urban environment, and try to reproduce them in the laboratory.

They came up with eight "primary" colours which were used as main threads for all the texiles used in Dai Fujiwara's "jungle and the city" collection for next summer.

It opened with translucent silk chiffons in organic greens and blues for simple trapeze dresses and shirts with trumpet sleeves worn over toning visible underwear.

Chameleon like, some fabrics changed colour as the models moved down the runway, because they contain a thread named after the morph butterfly found in the Amazon, which owes its intense blue colour to light refraction.

The hallmark pleats and kimono-styling were not forgotten, as in a dress with a low cowl neckline in front and at the back in sage green and grey, twisted round the torso and drawn in at the knees like the ribbing on a sweater.

Unimpressed by the ubiquitous posters advertising brag bags, French design duo Marithe and Francois Girbaud set out to show that clothes can be as surprising and fun as expensive accessories.

Their breezy back-to-college collection dressed up faded denim jeans and inky blue cotton pants with go-faster stripes, decorative zips, chains and pocket flaps, but above all lacing. The legs of trousers were laced at the sides, or more daringly up the middle of the behind in bright red.by Sarah Shard