Are these the emperor's new clothes?

As the designers took their bows and the supermodels bounced off the catwalks back into the changing rooms at the end of the Paris shows last week, there were the usual bouquets, hugs and parties. But in the background was the growing army of dissenters, asking whether high fashion has finally gone out of fashion.

It has been a particularly bad year for the industry. Models have been lambasted for their anorexic figures; the pressure to find a new look has prompted fresh follies, which appear to flatter no one; and the great fashion houses including Dior are anxiously seeking a new generation of designers to breathe life back into the collections.

Among the most outspoken critics of the fashion world's vapid exploits and rich pickings is Colin McDowell, the fashion historian. He has portrayed Christian Lacroix, tipped to take over at Dior as head of design, as fashion's "Jack the Ripper", Vivienne Westwood as its "answer to Spinal Tap", and John Galliano is dismissed as "a latter-day Miss Havisham".

In their heyday in the Fifties, the fashion houses set dizzy heights of style and originality in pursuit of the ultimate chic, supported by the most glamorous women of the day. Margot Fonteyn wore Dior, Audrey Hepburn was linked with Givenchy and Brigitte Bardot with Louis Feraud in the most famous partnerships.

Pierre Berge, the partner of Yves Saint Laurent, is among those who have lamented the passing of the golden age of high fashion. "The business is building its dreams on a myth from the past," he said. "No one has or will ever be able to construct a human equal to the greats, Chanel, Dior or Saint Laurent." He added: "I don't know if these others are selling their dreams or their nightmares."

But with fewer women prepared to pay extortionate sums, haute couture has struggled to find a role on the modern catwalk. As early as 1968 Cristobel Balenciaga lamented "there's no one left to dress". The modern market consists of fewer than 3,000 women worldwide prepared to pay pounds 10,000 for a suit.

Instead, high fashion has evolved into a marketing ploy to keep the big names alive, and the fashion mafia has become ever more sensitive. Karl Lagerfield, known in the industry as the Kaiser, who earns around pounds 10m for his designs for Chanel, banned a senior United States fashion writer for her damning comments on the absurdity of his designs.

The champions of haute couture insist that it is one of the last great enclaves of exclusivity; that it provides escapism and can be as visionary as any art form. They say that wearing its creations is comparable to wearing an original painting. Christian Dior described it grandly as "ephemeral architecture which glorifies the proportions of the female body".

Gianni Versace was adamant that the designers created real clothes for real women. He said: "I make clothes for the contemporary faces of Eve. I never do a dress fitting myself. I'm surrounded by five or six women and I always say: 'Would you wear this?'"

The most cynical interpretation of the modern haute couture put forward by Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Conde Nast Publications, is that it is kept for vengeful wives and mistresses. While a Valentino number will keep the first happy, a Versace dress is an appropriately ephemeral gift for the second.

All this madness began with the extravagant Marie-Antoinette and her lavish dress-maker Rose Bertin. But the first true couturier was an Englishman, Frederick Worth, who dressed Empress Eugenie and the actress Sarah Bernhardt in Paris in the last century. But the irony of modern high fashion is that while it was started to create one-off exclusives in world where mass-produced goods were becoming commonplace, increasingly it has been reshaped by the high street. The critics claim it is no longer clear who is following who.

In a flourish at the end of the Paris shows Lagerfield resurrected the dreaded leggings famous for going baggy in all the wrong places. Most dedicated followers of fashion would expect them to be more readily available at British Home Stores than Chanel.

Mr McDowell quipped this weekend that they were less reminiscent of "young flappers", the theme of the Chanel show, than of "old slappers". The difference is, of course, that Lagerfield's will sell for pounds 200 a pair, while the less dedicated will find leggings for sale at local market stalls for as little as pounds 7.99.

Perhaps an even greater irony is that Coco Chanel, the most enduring name in haute couture, based her own designs on ease. She was determined that women deserved a wardrobe in which they felt comfortable and confident, prompting her to take cotton Jersey, then used only for men's underwear, to make chic and simple clothes for women.

Her creations were a far cry from the recent range of clothes on parade on skinny models, which have become a test of beauty over absurdity where it is a feat simply not to look entirely ridiculous. The idea of anyone other than a model wearing them, is at best an expensive joke at the cost of very rich women.

If it is all nonsense perhaps the designers, who can afford to smile on their fat salaries, are right in suggesting that the public should keep a sense of humour. Commenting on the difference between architecture and haute couture, Lagerfield said: "If you build a dress wrongly, it's a drag. If you build a house wrongly you die."

Lacroix is fashion's 'Jack the Ripper', Westwood its 'answer to Spinal Tap', and Galliano 'a latter-day Miss Havisham'

- Colin McDowell

Haute couture is 'ephemeral

architecture which glorifies the

proportions of the

female body'

- Christian Dior

'The business is building its dreams on a myth from the past ... I don't know if

others are selling dreams or nightmares' - Pierre Berge

'I make clothes for the contemporary faces of Eve. I'm surrounded by women and I say: Would you wear this?'

- Gianni Versace

Haute couture is kept for vengeful wives and mistresses ... Valentino for the first and Versace for the second

- Nicholas Coleridge

Haute couture

humour: 'If you

build a dress

wrongly, it's a drag.

If you build a house wrongly you die'

- Karl Lagerfeld