Chanel and Givenchy Transitions

Fashion years operate a bit like dog years for designers: with six collections annually, their learning curves have to be a bit more accelerated than those of people who make career decisions every 12 months. So Alexander McQueen didn't have a lot of recovery time from his first couture show, in January, to his first ready-to-wear collection for Givenchy on Wednesday night. It takes a certain nerve to face an audience that panned your work two months earlier. But Mr. McQueen has that particular nerve, and a lot of other ones as well. Mr. McQueen matured so much in that short space of time, he seems a bit like the Robin Williams character in the film ''Jack.'' Between them, Mr. McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld produce 18 collections a year for houses that collectively bring in more revenue than many countries, now that Mr. McQueen has added men's wear to his own house and has taken on Givenchy's haute couture and ready-to-wear. And even though Mr. Lagerfeld is leaving his post at Chloe after his show on Friday, his collections for Chanel's haute couture and ready-to-wear, Fendi's furs, and the two collections he creates for his own house still seem an unfathomable amount of work.