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A holographic image of model Kate Moss floats above the catwalk at Alexander McQueen's fashion show.
PARIS, France (AP) -- British designer Alexander McQueen's ready-to-wear display on Friday had all the ingredients of a riddle: a cryptic invitation and rumors that supermodel Kate Moss would be making her first appearance on the catwalk since her drugs scandal broke.
In the event, Moss appeared more in the spirit than in the flesh -- but more on that later.
McQueen summoned guests with leaflets featuring the words: "Bantraich de cuil Lodair." A bit of sleuthing revealed the phrase to be Scottish Gaelic for: "The widow of Culloden."
This was the starting point for a collection of richly dramatic looks inspired by the 1746 Battle of Culloden, in which the British army defeated Jacobites led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known to his supporters as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
The show capped a day of autumn-winter presentations in Paris that also included Christian Lacroix and Chanel.
Costume touches included a white ruffle collar on a red and green tartan pouf dress and military-style frogging on the bodice of a crinkled nude dress. McQueen, who collects stuffed animals, had models sprouting bird wings from their heads like eccentric hats.
A sweeping black velvet dress dipped low in the back to reveal a nude bodysuit crawling with jet roses that looked like tattoos.
Even more spectacular was a sequence of corseted dresses in flower-embroidered pale green silk that conjured images of Flora Macdonald, the woman who famously helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape Scotland dressed as a maid.
As the lights dimmed, a ghostly light appeared in a glass pyramid at the center of the stage. Slowly, a holographic image of Kate Moss floating in yards of rippling fabric began to take shape.
Guests cheered wildly as the life-sized vision revolved in 3-D -- a feat never before seen on the Paris catwalk, and a symbolic resurrection for the supermodel, who lost several advertising contracts after she was pictured in London tabloids last year linked to drugs.
There was costume drama of a different kind at Lacroix, who drew inspiration from childhood memories of attending bullfights in Arles, his native city in southern France.
Lacroix said he was just 5 years old when he saw the legendary Spanish bullfighter Dominguin in 1956, and he was just as thrilled by his wife, the sensual Italian actress Lucia Bose.
Some models paraded in fitted jackets with antique silver embroidery inspired by matadors' traditional "suit of lights," while others wore 1950s-style cocktail dresses with full flowing skirts.
In keeping with the sober mood sweeping fashion, Lacroix showed lots of black, but his rare flashes of color were brilliant -- from kingfisher blue to his trademark vivid pink.
The designer said he wanted to go back to his roots after his purchase last year by the Falic Group, a privately held U.S. investment firm.
"I just wanted to take stock a little, to start again from scratch and to look for what really belongs to us," he told The Associated Press.
German designer Karl Lagerfeld transformed the soaring steel and glass Grand Palais into a giant theater set, with guests including pop singer Sting seated in boxes dotted around a catwalk studded with stagelights.
Models emerged in mostly black-and-white outfits that piled on different layers and lengths, to sometimes jumbled effect. Tweed jackets were worn with not one but two shirts -- a ruffled blouse and an ankle-length chiffon shirt left open to trail in the wind.
Trapeze-cut black chiffon dresses, meanwhile, were paired with ultra-wide satin trousers for a tent-like effect that contrasted sharply with Lagerfeld's usual body-skimming cuts.
"I find it's a new proportion, there is the long, the short, movement and ease," the designer said after the show.
