Jean-Paul Gaultier couture fall-winter 2008/2009 - Photo : Pierre Verdy/AFP

PARIS, July 3, 2008 (AFP) - Jean-Paul Gaultier's exotic birds of paradise all came complete with their cages at his couture show for next autumn-winter on Wednesday.

Whether in slinky second-skin satin sheaths slit tantalisingly to the thigh or shrugged into a luxurious fur jacket like a wolf pelt, the cage provided an outer protective layer between the garment and the outside world.

Gaultier offered it as the new accessory to supplant brag bags and jewellery and designed to complement the outfit: in metal or leather, satin-covered guipure as elaborate as wrought iron gates or adorned with feathers.

"Twenty years ago I was already doing corsets like cages," the designer reminisced after the show which was rapturously received, not least by the singer Janet Jackson.

He said he was working on costumes for a production by choreographer Angelin Prejlocaj along the lines of crinolines, but with his couture collection the crinoline structure had effectively ended up on the outside.

Gaultier, whose models all wore towering hairdos like double-decker chignons, said he believed "women feel so free these days they don't mind getting into cages. It's like an accessory, a jewel, a new kind of embroidery."

For her couture debut for the Italian house of Valentino Alessandra Facchinetti went for sweetness and refinement. She chose a palette of white, yellow, moka, grey and flesh pink, deliberately avoiding the fetish poppy red so beloved of the house's founder, who bowed out in January.

She showed short frocks in silk chiffon with hems embroidered with mother-of-pearl sequins and crystal and evening gowns in satin with organza leaves filling the backs.