Saving the world is serious business: Vauthier dresses today’s Wonder Woman (in couture)

Vauthier dresses today’s Wonder Woman (in couture)

PARIS — Wonder Woman got a hard-edged makeover Monday at Alexandre Vauthier’s fall-winter 2011 couture show, swapping her unitard for sheath dresses with plunging V necklines and dangling sleeves that were today’s super-heroine’s answer to the cape.

Vauthier, a rising talent who’s attracted A-list fans including Rihanna, served up dresses black, white and purple jersey, punctuated by wide gold belts and cuffs. From sharp, square shoulders dangled long ultra-long sleeves that, slit all the way up their undersides, swung with an I’m-about-to-save-the-world kind of jauntiness.

Plunging Vs were everywhere, vamping up the sheath dresses and heating up a turtleneck dress in clingy knit with a sexy, triangular cutout panel at the bust. One dress in graphic black and white was made from two oversized triangular panels, with the model literally sewn between the two.

Vauthier — who is showing on the margins of the prestigious haute couture displays despite being widely seen as among Paris’ brightest young lights — lived up to his reputation with this collection fit for a super woman.