The sophisticates; From the rainy boulevards of Paris_to the star-spangled halls of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, William Norwich seeks the meaning of the word sophistication.

Byline: William Norwich

Ma robe, ma robe!" Sarah Jessica Parker cried as several burly Paris policemen arrested her. "Ma robe, ma robe!" she exclaimed-"My dress, my dress!"-as they carried her off to their paddy wagon waiting in the Place Vendome.

And ma robe, indeed: She was wearing Lacroix couture, a cobblestone-sweeping cloud of gathered and tiered white tulle, with black Chantilly lace gently applauding at the hem.

But don't panic. As you may have already guessed, Parker's arrest was all make-believe. Christian Lacroix was there, watching the action, as Jean-Paul Goude directed a late-night commercial shoot for Parker's fragrance project launching next year for Coty Prestige perfumes (makers of her popular Lovely scent, which debuted in 2005).

While Parker was arrested several times more, Lacroix and I chatted. Come 2007, he will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his label. He is planning a fashion show and party in New York during the fall collections, timed also to the opening of a new boutique he expects will be located at Fifty-seventh Street near Madison Avenue.

It is hard to believe that 20 years has passed since Lacroix's pouf skirt landed in America and launched the quintessential look of the 1980s-now revived, for better or for worse, in many of the spring 2007 collections. In 1987, Lacroix took Manhattan with a glittering week's worth of festivities, including a charity ball that was the first of its sort ever in downtown. That week forever solidified the marriage of society and fashion. By comparison, everything leading up to it was just an engagement party.

"What is the social weather in New York?" Lacroix asked.