Fashion in the Instagram Age

Paris

LAST week, at the opening of the haute couture season, in the gardens of Les Invalides, the gold-domed monument to France's military history where Napoleon is buried, Christian Dior created the world yet to be explored: Wooden crocodiles roamed over arid earth; giraffes through stands of bamboo; and eagles soared overhead beneath the canopy of a suspended map by artist Pietro Ruffo.

The next day, in the Grand Palais, Chanel rebuilt the Eiffel Tower, its girders reaching upward towards the glass ceiling, while in the shade of the structure's enormous metal limbs were assorted potted trees and green folding chairs meant to mimic Paris' most famous parks.

And the day after that, Jean Paul Gaultier ended his show with a model riding a bicycle chariot festooned with lace and feathers down the runway as snow fell behind and on either side, the video lights of hund…