Valentino is between teenage and matronly looks

PARIS - Valentino, whose new design duo have the difficult task of rejuvenating the label's aging customer base, had something for everyone - or, depending on how you look at it, for no one - with a fall-winter 2010-11 haute couture collection that paired matronly chiffon blouses with the miniest of minidresses.

Designers Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, who were promoted out of Valentino's lucrative accessories label after the designer who briefly replaced founder Valentino Garavani was dismissed, have demonstrated their predilection for creeping hemlines in season's past - to mixed reviews.

They gave it another try on Wednesday, sending out pretty little bustier dresses that grazed the tops of the models' gazelle thighs. Sometimes the dresses, in black, beige, sea green and baby pink, were worn alone, sometimes layered over long-sleeved chiffon blouses that felt like they were channeling a 1970s schoolmarm.

With its beige petticoat-like structures layered on top of some of the looks, the collection was spot on the innerwear-as-outerwear trend that ran through Wednesday's couture shows. One model sported an oblong birdcage, its bone-work visible through the translucent silk, over her minidress.

Bows, one of the hallmarks of the ultra-feminine brand, were everywhere, adorning one sleeve of a leather skirt suit in powder pink, the beaded, kitten-heel mules worn by all the girls and the back of low-cut leather gloves.

It was a pretty collection, overall, but one that might prove a harder sell to the over-17 set, whose thighs no longer resemble those of a deer.