The final day of Paris Fashion Week yesterday saw three very dissimilar shows from Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu and Hermès as the three labels showcased their Spring/Summer 11 collections.

Louis Vuitton was camp, colorful and fancy. The show began with cabaret-style red velvet curtains drawing back to disclose another pair of sparkly tiger-print ones, from which models showed between three stuffed tigers.

The chic black marble catwalk hosted models in fringed 1920s-style flapper dresses and tailored coats in profligate block colors such as red, purple, pink and gold.

Gorgeous accessories included jeweled shoulder and clutch bags in citrus shades such as orange and yellow, and regal tones as well as turquoise and gold.

The animal theme continued with sequin pandas printed on tunic tops, zebra-print dresses and giraffes showing on the back of stunning white silk trouser suits.

Meanwhile, Miu Miu’s show was all about celebrity and ambition, with stars such as Dakota Fanning and Alexa Chung on the front row.

Paris Fashion Week is doing much more for the plus-size model movement than New York Fashion Week, where the only distinguished plus-size model casting was Crystal Renn at Z-Spoke.

Jean Paul Gaultier, who has become known for casting Renn in his runway shows and present fall 2010 campaign, cast Beth Ditto to open and close his show Saturday. Renn was one of the few extra plus-size models on the runway.

Gaultier told reporters after the show, what counts is personality; there is not just the one form of typecast beauty. This collection’s pleats can be worn by any size and settle in to different body shapes.

British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, for one, is strenuous of “shock” casting. She told the Guardian, “Instead of a fuss being made about a little cause célèbre exceptions on the catwalk, what I’d actually like in its place is for most models to be a size 10 rather than a size 8.”

John Galliano’s devotion to a theme is only one of the immense things about the man. He got so into the sailing, tropical theme for his spring 2011 Dior show, which walked this morning in Paris, that he took his bow wearing a pirate outfit, his hair in two beach-perfect fishtail braids. Those plaits were only one scrap of the excitement!

The models, some of whom wore leis, worked their small sailor hats by giving salutes at the end of the runway, which was made to appear like a rusty slipway. The girls appeared at the other end from a set that looked like a desert island.

Little flowers germinated toward the floor from the crocheted middle of one, looking almost like Christmas-tree ornaments poised by tentacles. Some skirts resembled grass hula styles, creation the show seem at times just a coconut bra away from a no-food luau.

But the most exciting thing about this collection is that it ties rather to the mermaid theme that’s been teetering on the edge of full fashion-world acceptance for concerning a year. As soon as a celebrity cool goes out in a seashell bra, the ‘maids will in fact be in business.