Storm Irene: Miharayasuhiro Spring 2010 Men´s.

Mihara Yasuhiro is the secret weapon of Paris menswear, the designer who consistently makes strong, convincing fashion statements, stages them in magical ways—and still manages to fly under the radar.

For Spring, Mihara was inspired by one of his favorite stories, The Little Prince, and the life of its author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Just as the prince journeys from his own planet to land in a desert on earth, the show began with giant screens projecting the universe slowly revolving. The opening passage featured distressed military-influenced cottons, reflecting Saint-Exupéry’s experience as a flier in World War I.

There was a group of sand-colored pieces with a clear Saharan influence, and another set of dark tailoring intended to evoke the depths of space. On paper, it looks contrived, but the structure was loose enough that elements of one narrative thread appeared in another.

So the rose (the single plant growing on the Little Prince's planet) was echoed in an exotic, red-beaded shirt that flowered unexpectedly under worn khakis, or the rosettes massed on the front of a black shirt.

And if that sounds romantic, it’s only because Mihara is some kind of poet with clothes. A master fabric technologist, he delivered poplin coats that floated like mirages, and cotton suits whose shapes were achieved with no visible structure at all.

Husam El Odeh, longtime collaborator and fellow Little Prince fan, created entirely sympathetic jewelry, the best piece of which was a black pearl wedged in the middle of a silver bolt. (He also recreated the Prince's crown in black-gold-plated silver, studded with glowing pearls.)

And Mihara's wife, Hiromi, a celebrated jazz pianist in Japan, provided her own lyrical interpretation of "Wonderwall" by Oasis. The sense that here is a creative little cabal of humanist/artists that No One Really Knows About was simultaneously thrilling and frustrating.