PARIS - Ever since Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq let slip during his United Nations visit last week that his government had uncovered information about an ISIS plan to attack the subways in New York and Paris, there has been a niggling sense of unease hanging over the final fashion city of the season.
'You aren't too worried about taking the Métro?' said one showgoer to another when the subject of how to get to Givenchy came up on Sunday. (Though Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York had come forward to reassure his city, in Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo had done no such thing.)
It wasn't helped by the news of protests in Hong Kong, an erstwhile (maybe not so much anymore?) high-fashion retailing Valhalla. Still, by Monday and the last three days of the season, at least the Air France pilots had stopped striking.
You take the positive where you can find it, and watch your back. It may be one of the lessons of the season.
Certainly it pretty much defines the approach of Chitose Abe at Sacai, who has made a career out of slicing and dicing garments into push-me, pull-you combinations.
This season that meant army green military uniforms collaged with navy guipure lace, khaki skirts sprouting sheer chiffon inserts, and floral cotton drill laser cut into broderie anglaise. What you think you are getting is never quite what you see, but while the result is undeniably inventive, it is starting to feel overly complicated; seamstressy wizardry for its own sake.
It's the opposite of Stella McCartney, a brand founded on the principle that you should never look like you are trying too hard (an idea that, of course, takes quite a lot of work to realize). Witness this season's washed-silk pastel jumpsuits and matching trench coats and anoraks, the plaid pajama suiting for day, and the ribbed knits cut to flash a half-moon of skin here, a bit of waist there. Belt buckles held up tunic straps and closed deep V-necks, and a series of print flou dresses swirled around the legs like water.
It was all so relaxed, it was hard to remember what was worth getting worked up about in the first place. If clothes served the same purpose as a smile (you know: Do it when you feel bad and it will convince your body it feels better), these would be a stress antidote extraordinaire.
For those who needed reminding of life's unforeseen complications, however, there was Chloé, where the designer Clare Waight Keller found herself in the unenviable position of having to hold her show the day after the death of the house's founder, Gaby Aghion.
Dedicating the collection to Ms. Aghion's memory, Ms. Waight Keller sent out lacy baby-doll dresses and tailored shorts with matching boy jackets; draped and flowing crepes; neat suede sheaths, the waist demarcated by intersecting metallic links; and a navy evening gown, the torso entirely embedded in the same.
'I was interested in fabrics with history, almost a folklore,' she said backstage before the show, and the airy volumes paid homage to Ms. Aghion's initial imperative to create a freer, more fluid femininity. A faded denim poncho sweatshirt paired with matching sweatpants was less successful - weightier and kind of kitschy (Juicy Chloé?) - but over all, by turning her face toward the light(weight) and literally ring-fencing her ideas, Ms. Waight Keller told her own story.
The 'quest for light' (the designer's words, handwritten with the run of the show) was also the subject at Akris, as Albert Kriemler found his grail in Kazimir Malevich's geometries via white tennis leathers and voiles layered with irregular, almost invisible tone-on-tone rectangular appliqués. Black gowns in transparent tulle georgette sported strategically placed matte panels, and suits and T-shirts and dresses entirely woven into an open mesh proved an ode, yet again, to the square.
Meanwhile, at Giambattista Valli, cherry blossom-embroidered shifts and the tunic/flared trouser combo so ubiquitous this week wafted tiers of falling leaves and swinging fringe, brocade butterflies and baby bows.
Not that it was all sweetness and more light: Across every print (or, to be fair, many prints) a black raindrop did fall.
It was at Givenchy, however, where things really took a tougher turn. The designer Riccardo Tisci seemed to be channeling gothic Tyrolean maids in homespun armor and new romantic pirates (or something like that) via studs and stripes, not to mention leather, lace, grommets and corsetry, all in black and white, with a shell pink thrown in here and there for good measure.
Some of it was cool, especially the squared-off collarless white tailcoats edged in black and laced along every edge, and some of it was over-the-top (crosses over the hearts on printed sheer T-shirts layered to create a double-vision effect, which will probably end up a best seller nonetheless). Some of it was very Givenchy (the little black dresses, the flounced white-lace poet shirts and shirt-dresses) and some of it pretty derivative: Alaïa by way of Balmain, filtered through another lens.
We live in an era of found inspiration, and such borrowings are commonplace on many a runway, so in some ways it is just par for the course. But just like the show's alluring, in-your-face sexuality and self-sufficient energy, it was also impossible to ignore.
In the Instagram world, however, where memories are short, these connections matter less and less (we can debate that on its merits another time). Instead, here's what does: the blood-quickening impression that if you mess with these girls, they might stomp you on the foot with their nail-heeled over-the-knee boot.
Put another way: They wouldn't just shrug off the heavy and take the Métro. They'd leap the turnstile. Yow.
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