Paris Fashion Week ended yesterday, capping a season which saw designers play it safe, hoping to coax high-end customers into stores despite the global financial crisis.

"On the whole, most of the designers here have kind of stuck to what they know they can do," said Alexandra Shulman, editor-in-chief of British Vogue, "and not really tried anything that's going to scare the horses."

Goodness knows you don't want to scare the horses.

Major trends this year included lashings of color and print, sheer fabrics, sequins for day and sky-high hemlines.

"We've seen a lot of very short clothes, which goes against the old idea that when the economy is bad, hemlines go down," Shulman said.

Hey, if you've got good legs, short skirts never go out of style. Or maybe short skirts are part of fashion's stimulus package.

"There's next to nothing, there's nothing, and then there's less than nothing," designer Marc Jacobs joked backstage at Louis Vuitton, referring to the miniskirts that were sliced in the back for a cheeky reveal.

Celebrity guests at Vuitton included Lenny Kravitz, Sofia Coppola and Kerry Washington, who said a scoop-backed black satin dress with sequined sleeves was "amazing."

At the Miu Miu show in an 18th century-style mansion, models with sleek hairdos and crimson lips marched robotically in torn silk dresses and burlap dresses pocked with holes.

Ah, nothing says comfort like burlap. If you really need to scratch that fashion itch.

The spring collection of Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz combined clean lines with opulent volume in gowns made from vibrant silks that looked like they had just been thrown on. Fabric flounced over one shoulder or draped above the hip in deep swirls.

The Israeli-American designer said his job was to create desire.

"Women are not going to buy less, they're going to buy different. I think that they're going to buy emotional pieces that they cannot resist," he told reporters. "They may skip dinner or lunch, but they will get the dress."

Tattbits

* Paramount and DreamWorks say they are formally separating following DreamWorks' deal to partner with Reliance Entertainment of India.

Paramount, a subsidiary of Viacom, bought DreamWorks for $1.6 billion in 2006 - an amount now known in Congress as spare change.

* In Kuwait, authorities abruptly ended a concert by an Egyptian male singer when a young female fan jumped on stage, hugged the singer and gave him a kiss. Qanas al-Adwani, who heads the government department that monitors public entertainment, says the girl's behavior at Friday's concert "defied the conservative traditions" of the country. What if she had just thrown her bra onstage, like in the old days?

* The Elvis is Alive Museum is dead. Andy Key tried to sell the Missouri museum twice on eBay. He received no legitimate bids. Key bought the museum on eBay last year for more than $8,000. He says military duties will keep him away from home and he can't operate it. The collection includes photos, books, FBI files and DNA reports that aim to support the theory that Elvis Presley never died.

* On Friday, a judge ordered Texas doctor Gerald Johnson and his wife not to distribute videotaped footage of Anna Nicole Smith's breast augmentation surgery in 1994. Larry Birkhead, who fathered Smith's daughter, called the video "truly disgusting" in a sworn declaration issued last year. "It was clear that Anna Nicole was unconscious during the videotaping, and even more disturbing, the videotape focused on areas of her nude body that were unrelated to the location of the surgery," he said. The ruling put the kibosh on the breast-shaped "Special Implant Edition" DVD set to be available for holiday shoppers. *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com