Jennifer Lopez and golden glamour dazzle at Paris Fashion Week

PARIS (AP) — Saint Laurent sent out a river of gold, as giant chandeliers bathed a glossy black outdoor runway in golden light and the Eiffel Tower shimmered in the background.

The extravagant show was attended by Catherine Deneuve, Kate Moss, Hailey Bieber and Rami Malek, while elsewhere at Paris Fashion Week Jennifer Lopez took her seat at Stella McCartney’s rain-soaked gardens. Rihanna turned out for the upstarts at the conceptual fashion house Matières Fécales, which translates as “fecal matter.”

Whatever its financial troubles — and there are many — Paris retained its ability to assemble stellar front rows and impressive staging this season.

Midway through spring-summer 2027, shows crystallized into three stories: glamour on a grand scale; a great undressing; and an industry working couture technique into T-shirts and jeans while asking itself, nervously, who all of this is for.

Last month, cosmetics giant L’Oréal overtook LVMH as France’s most valuable listed company. It's the first time since 2017 that a non-luxury company has topped the Paris bourse.

Saint Laurent’s parent Kering has returned to growth after a bruising downturn, but Balenciaga remains under pressure and Gucci is still struggling to reverse years of falling sales behind the runway gloss.

At Saint Laurent on Tuesday night, gold was almost the whole story.

Gold looked brittle, fluid, translucent or densely worked. Safari jackets and trenches came in crinkled metallic cottons. Cocktail dresses featured glinting lace, cropped jackets in brocade. Stilettos stood on serpent-shaped heels.

Then came the black finale, led by Polish supermodel Anja Rubik — a reversal of Yves Saint Laurent’s all-gold closing sequence in 1991.

Charlotte Gainsbourg stepped onto the runway to sing, adding an intimate finish to the monumental setting.

Marking a decade at the house, designer Anthony Vaccarello dispensed with his customary interviews and let the collection carry the occasion.

Its retrospective mood invited speculation about a farewell, but the show contained no announcement of a departure.

Two days later, Chloé approached excess through texture.

Chemena Kamali piled broderie anglaise with lace, pearls and tassels, and sent out rainwear and long-brimmed fishermen’s hats in vivid colours. Ruffled sleeves showed an emphatic argument for volume.

The bright outerwear interrupted the sweetness.

The question was how much decoration Chloé‘s promise of easy dressing could comfortably carry.

McCartney’s show, meanwhile, rewarded its damp audience with easy tailoring, coral-like knitted forms and airbrushed dolphins on denim.

Sculptural hems and peplums gave the clothes an underwater buoyancy, while naturalist David Attenborough’s voice supplied the ocean-conservation message.

The peplum, in fact, was one of the week’s quiet constants, turning up sculpted here and stitched into shirting at Balenciaga.

The strongest pieces connected that theme to McCartney’s familiar sporting ease: loose tailoring, drawstring details and clothes with room to move.

Across the runways, underwear was doing an increasing share of the dressing.

At Tom Ford, Haider Ackermann staged a particularly playful display: sharp tailoring accompanied by bare chests, fishnet, severely reduced swimwear and silk robes. Black swimsuits were more geometry than garment.

A male model in a sweater and pale pink thong carried a vicuña coat draped over a weekend bag.

Ackermann extended the house’s familiar sexual confidence across men’s and women’s clothes, keeping the tailoring precise enough to give all that exposure some structure.

At Balmain, Antonin Tron built a stronger second outing around midcentury backstage photographs and their air of glamorous half-dress: corset bodices, garters swinging from miniskirts, bras under shrunken satin bombers, eel skin and animal-patterned jacquards.

His references ranged from Jim Morrison to Michel Foucault’s experiments with LSD in California.

Simulated rain lashed the covered windows of Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion.

Printing, embroidery and sequins gave the surfaces depth, though their richness sometimes competed with the sensual draping that is one of Tron’s strengths.

Even Rick Owens went boudoir, on his own terms: on a ramp across the Palais de Tokyo’s reflecting pool, he sent out stone-colored column gowns, spiked tulle, crystal-laden footwear and full-body constructions of tulle and elastic.

The question beneath it all was harder to stage: in a downturn, how does luxury justify itself?

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s answer at Balenciaga was technique.

Dense rows of stitching shaped a white shirt into a fitted waist and flaring peplum.

A T-shirt received a similar treatment. Jeans were cut on the bias — diagonally across the fabric — to change their fall.

Shown in daylight at the Tennis Club de Paris, the collection made a persuasive case for putting couture knowledge to everyday use.

Designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran took over Place de la République for a show titled “The 99 Percent.”

The collection brought together sari-inspired draping, shredded denim and figures styled to evoke masked demonstrators.

The finale sent out a woman in a gold lamé gown carrying two slumped dummies of white men in suits.

Public access was part of the proposition.

The irony was hard to miss: 99% of the world cannot afford Matières Fécales’ clothes.

Paris had demonstrated how to make people look, but it's the clothes, the industry hopes, that will persuade them to spend.

A model wears a creation as part of the Chloe Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

A model wears a creation as part of the Stella McCartney Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Jennifer Lopez arrives for the Stella McCartney Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

Models wear creations as part of the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Teresa Suarez)

A model wears a creation as part of the Saint Laurent Womenswear Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Teresa Suarez)

NEW YORK (AP) — The woman who accused members of a Cornell University fraternity of gang rape was “failed” by people obligated to protect her, including campus police and the county prosecutor, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday.

Hochul said at a news conference that she decided to appoint Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor to take over the investigation after learning “troubling details” about how authorities have handled the woman’s claims thus far, including that the district attorney closed the case without having anyone interview the accuser or anyone else involved in the alleged attack.

“In what world does the district attorney not even interview her, or anyone else involved, or even request the full transcript?” Hochul said. “This woman, this young woman, had already endured something that is utterly unspeakable. And then at every turn, she was failed by people and institutions with an obligation to protect her.”

She also assailed the Cornell University Police Department for not fully conveying the woman’s story to prosecutors.

“After this young woman came forward, she spoke to the police. She sat for hours and told them exactly what happened to her. And according to new reports, she could not have been clearer that she was 100% confident that she had been raped," the Democratic governor said. "Yet, shockingly, those words never made it into the account that the Cornell police sent to prosecutors.”

Hochul said Thursday that she appointed James to oversee the case because she had lost faith in the local district attorney’s ability to handle it.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, who was removed from the case, said Friday that he supports James’ appointment.

“I trust that she will examine the facts and apply the law," Van Houten said in a statement. ”It has become clear that we were not provided the full picture by the University. The focus has been and should continue to be on the victims.”

James didn't say how long her investigation might take, but suggested it would take months.

“We will review the facts, gather evidence, interview witnesses and, if warranted, pursue prosecutions,” James said. “I know that you want answers. I do too. A comprehensive investigation of this nature takes time, but my office is committed to seeing it through.”

The investigation initially was closed without charges in 2024. Van Houten reopened the investigation on Monday after the woman filed a new lawsuit against seven former members of the Chi Phi fraternity, as well as Cornell and others.

Van Houten has defended his decision not to prosecute, maintaining that a sworn statement by the woman prepared by police didn’t include the woman's allegations that she was drugged against her will, incapacitated beyond the ability to consent and forced into sex.

The case has roiled the Ivy League school and raised questions about its response and the larger issue of how sexual assaults are handled on college campuses.

The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, told campus police in November of 2024 that she was sexually assaulted, then discussed it with the university’s internal investigators as part of Cornell’s disciplinary process.

Her lawsuit alleges that she was plied with drugs and alcohol, then subjected to sexual acts by a group of men while she was partially or entirely incapacitated. One of the men sent a social media message to other fraternity members alerting them to what was happening and inviting people to take part, according to the lawsuit.

Lawyers for two of the men she is suing have denied they participated in a sexual assault. One said his client didn't touch the woman. Attempts to reach the other men or their representatives for comment have been unsuccessful.

Hochul also threw her support behind proposals to change an element of New York law that has long made it more difficult to prosecute people who have engaged in sex with someone who voluntarily became intoxicated to the point where their ability to consent was compromised.

Under the law, rape charges generally need to involve force or a clear refusal of sex, unless the victim is physically helpless due to being unconscious, or mentally incapacitated due to being drugged without their consent. New York is one of 19 states with such laws.

“If someone is too intoxicated to consent, it should not matter whether they chose to use drugs or alcohol. Voluntary intoxication is not a license for sexual assault or gang rape, period,” the governor said.

New York governors have turned to attorneys general to oversee important cases in the past.

In 2018, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed then-Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas as a special prosecutor to investigate Eric Schneiderman, who resigned as New York attorney general after women accused him of violent slapping, choking and other abuse.

In 2021, James oversaw a non-criminal investigation into sexual harassment allegations against then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, leading to his resignation. Cuomo initially tried to choose who would lead the investigation into the allegations. He then allowed James to choose two independent attorneys to lead it instead.

James’ office also handles other criminal work and has the power under state law to investigate every death involving law enforcement in the state. But, typically, she can’t initiate criminal investigations without a referral from a local district attorney, the governor or a state agency, or an appointment like the one Hochul made Thursday.

This story was updated to correct the spelling of Letitia James' name.

New York Attorney General Letitia James attends a news conference with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a news conference, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a news conference with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a news conference with New York Attorney General Letitia James, Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

FILE - New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, left, listens as Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a news conference in New York, Oct. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Shown is the the Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)