Runway New York: Monique Lhuillier

With evening wear as genteel as the show's setting, Monique Lhuillier's Spring-Summer 2010 collection at Christie's auction house drew the usual accolades for faultless taste.

Far from the atmospherics of Bryant Park, the stiller environs framed Lhuillier's impeccably elegant gowns with a befitting hush, like the instructive quiet surrounding the objets d'art one passed on the way up.

And, like beautiful, decorative pieces, Lhuillier's goddess gowns and cocktail dresses were terrifically covetable and lingered in the mind. Inspired by the Masai tribe, the clothes were lithe and lyrical in their fluidity and both delicate and intricate in embellishment.

The opener, a tiered, fringed dress in sunflower, haltered by a lavish macramé neck, would be a showstopper in any occasion, a pert reminder that Lhuillier, indeed, is the queen of red-carpet glamour.

Then followed a series of eyefixing cocktail dresses, each with conversation-piece potential: a black bustier dress with a full skirt and a tumble of gold, crosshatch embroidery; a toffee-colored, strapless sheath of "warrior fringe" that had the texture of traditional Masai dwellings, and a gloriously embroidered "armor" sheath in antique gold with a black, embroidered bolero that resembled wings. Lhuillier worked the tribal inspiration to an impressively seamless degree, the ethnic inflections, while pervasive, remained stealth and subtle.

The silk jersey column gowns, with their perfectly poised draping, were, of course, signature Lhuillier-tasteful, immaculate, and would most likely cause a run among the Hollywood crowd.

Less assured were the ventures into daywear-the metallic, tweed skirt and jacket with the piping and the big bow looked stiff and dated; structure, at least as far as day clothes are concerned, is something the designer has yet to master.

This, of course, did not take anything away from the loveliness of the entire collection. Monique Lhuillier, hands down, makes achingly beautiful pieces any conscientious glamazon would love to own. The rising gown guru is, indeed, in the house.