Bouleversant!

No matter that the skies were grey, the Bois wrapped in mist. For Parisians, spring is at hand as soon as the couturiers have decreed what women will wear to greet it. It was that time last week, and from all the portents it will be a spring to remember.

As the two-week round of showings got under way, the overall tone was soft--pretty rather than bold, more flattering than fussy. Gerard Pipart, 31, in his second season at Nina Ricci, caused a major ripple with coats slashed up to the waist, long double-breasted jackets and dresses, most made of silk and crepe, cut on the bias to leave the figure looking long and lazy.

Jacques Heim had other ideas, mostly leggy: there were textured stockings, pleated culottes, ruffled pajamas, and panties peeking out from under a chiffon dress to add "a discreet note of eroticism." But the biggest gasps in town greeted a Heim stretch suit patterned like a cobra skin and protected (he says) from charges of indecent exposure by a U.S.-made body stocking underneath. Lanvin stuck to skirts, most of which, in turn, were stuck to panels (of the skinny, streamer variety), while Griffe played the game from both sides of the net, turned some skirts into pants, left others the way they started out.

Chanel even outdid Chanel. Stealing the spotlight from her celebrated suits were gay, graceful dresses, many sidewrapped, mostly ruffled, pleated or tiered. Top Coco: an elegant-innocent white organdy evening dress with enough ruffles to fill Swan Lake.

But the man of the hour--and of spring and summer too--was Dior's Marc Bohan. Overshadowed a few seasons ago by the much-heralded Yves St. Laurent, Bohan was clearly back In, with tenure. In a bouleversant collection hailed as the most beautiful in years, Bohan took fashion out of the bony grasp of the mannequins and gave it back to the women whose extra inch of hip or bosom, however fetching to the male eye, have made them high fashion's untouchables. Exclaimed Best-Dressed Jacqueline de Ribes: "I am so happy!"

The new Dior suits have flaring jackets and full, pleated or gathered skirts. Dresses, in sunny pastels and fresh flowered prints, acknowledge the shapes they clothe; so do the coats, with narrow belts that define waistlines instead of camouflaging them. There was not a pair of pants or a bared navel in the show, or a single lament for their absence. The Bohan brand of exotica--soft silk tunics, rajah coats, full-length sheaths cut above the ankle in front--may have been inspired by the designer's trip to India last fall. But the results are all Paris, and all Paris rejoiced.

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