For his spring-summer 2010 collection, designer Christophe Decarnin delivered more of the peak-shouldered jackets, tiny dresses and second-skin jeans that have made the storied Paris label the It Brand for jet-setting party girls _ this season infusing his hallmark silhouette with a bold, dark sensuality.

Out went the Swarovski crystals that blanketed Decarnin's teensy-weensy dresses in seasons past. In came the chainmail, the laced-up leather strips and ragged-hemmed swathes of crocodile that looked as if they had been ripped off the vanquished reptile.

"It was made for Xena, the warrior princess," French fashion icon and TV journalist Mademoiselle Agnes said after the show, which was held beneath the massive crystal chandeliers of a gilded hotel ballroom.

There was also a hint of medieval French heroine Joan of Arc in the minidresses made of elegantly draped chainmail in burnished bronze.

Many of the dresses had the over-the-top peaked shoulders that have become Balmain's trademark over the past seasons and helped take the label from bankruptcy protection to among the world's hottest.

The pointy-shouldered leather jackets beloved by fashionistas worldwide were given swishy tails and done in drab military versions that looked sure to be next season's blockbuster.

Top models like Carmen Kass and Isabeli Fontana wore hole-riddled T-shirts that looked like a lion used them as chewing gum and skintight jeans with suggestive claw swipes at the upper thigh. The dresses, which grazed the very top of the thighs, were similarly unforgiving.

"Girls, you better be fit if you want to get into Balmain," Mademoiselle Agnes said with a devilish grin.