Everyday Couture.

Byline: editor: Sally Singer

Sound like an oxymoron? Sarah Mower follows Jennifer Woo on a spree among the season's wearable wonders.

Jennifer Woo wants to get one thing straight. "I'm not a society girl," she says, smiling, over breakfast at the Ritz. "I haven't been to a ball in . . . how long? I love fashion, but I won't change my life to accommodate it. I'm in meetings at work the whole time, so I need an efficient wardrobe."

Meet the refreshingly modern embodiment of the latest acronym-about-fashion: the incredibly young, superdynamic BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) client who has just landed in Paris with a mind to buy haute couture. In 2003, at 25, Woo became president of Lane Crawford, the family-owned department store she's since transformed into the equivalent of Barneys in Hong Kong and Beijing. Generally, she's hoping to see designers push tailoring, inventing something with presence and structure for her generation, one that definitely won't be caught dead in corporate suits. "I've stayed away from tailoring for so long," she says, "I want to see if I can do it in a new way." But there's a bit of apprehension, too. Like any girl, she's arrived with fixed ideas about her body and what she can't wear (she never, ever does frilly). "It has to be sleek for me. I'm an ex-swimmer. Big shoulders, short neck, no waist! And I'm not model size."

She's pre-edited her show list to houses she regards as "jackety." At Armani, Woo scrutinizes the highly feminized silhouette but concludes the jacketed element--soft, ruched, tight to the waist--is too far off her daywear plan. "I'd feel bad about asking for it to be adapted. If you buy haute couture, it should have the integrity of what the designer intended." Over at Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci works a punk-ballerina look balanced between severe tailoring and flounces. Already a fan of his ready-to-wear, she sighs, "Love!" Next day, within minutes of arriving at the sunny, parquet-floored couture salon at the Avenue George V and hugging Tisci (an unusual honor, as few couturiers are on hand to attend to clients), she's in the tiny black radzimir Victoriana jacket that opened the show. Close up, the seams turn out to be connected with lace inserts, and tiny lettered buttons spell out GIVENCHY. There's a vest, too. "A done deal!" she cries, but dismisses the undulating circular skirt that goes with it as too girly. Tisci then helps her into another black coat-jacket as a yelp of excitement escapes her. " So me!" Behind a screen, the vendeuse and fitter take 22 measurements and explain how a mannequin will be made to her shape and the pieces created on it.

So far, however, she's found nothing to wear under the jackets. Woo anxiously eyes the ostrich dresses. "These are beautiful," she tells Tisci, "but it has to be day for me." Unfazed, he walks toward a gigantic beige Chinese-lantern bolero, pulls out a ruff-necked shirt from underneath that hadn't been visible on the runway, and suggests elongating it into a shirtdress. "Really? You could make something for me that isn't in the collection?" "Of course! That is the most fun. I'll send you sketches."

Woo arrives at Chanel in an adamant mood. "I know exactly what I want. I dreamed about it last night"