On cue, the house model walks in wearing a cream cashmere coat-dress that will eventually cost some wealthy couture customer £10,000 or so.

The couture customer, like mature women everywhere, has been reluctant to accept long skirts, no matter how many slits and transparencies designers equipped them with.

After five years in the fashion spotlight, short skirts have won no more ardent fans than couture customers.

He is a favorite of couture customers who want quiet, well-made clothes that flatter but never shriek.

Its owners want to appeal to the new generation of couture customers, and the British designer's wacky personal style belies his elegant fashion.

Harper's Bazaar editors said yesterday that they had also canceled their travel plans, as have several newspaper reporters and a number of couture customers.

They encourage the models to move with a coltish gait, which should have nostalgic appeal for the women well past adolescence who are the major couture customers.

This may well be apt for couture customers, but nuances of it could drift down to the rest of us.

"The haute couture customer wears something once, at the most twice," she said.

"This collection is dedicated to my couture customer," Arnold Scaasi said, not inappropriately, just before his spring show yesterday at his salon.