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It was a defining moment - or rather, a series of defining moments. Alexander McQueen's triumphant Paris show served up a selection of his greatest hits, looking back into his own archive and casting a fresh light on past glories.
What glories they were, serving as a timely reminder of just how influential a designer he is. So many of McQueen's staple looks -thigh boots, corset dresses, bondage straps, goat hair coats -have seeped into the collections of others, albeit in a watered-down way, that it was wonderful to see their originator reclaim them as his own again.
A tall pyre of crushed car parts, wrecked chairs and tin cans served as a centrepoint to the show, round which the models walked in stacked heels that were the highest seen in Paris so far. That's saying something.
A series of sculptural suits in black and white houndstooth check opened the show, some with kimono sleeves and others with a high ruffle at the neck. At times, tops and bottoms were reversed, with trousers reworked into jackets and dresses into coats, so that the clothes looked skewed or deliberately off-kilter.
The hats, masterfully constructed by Philip Treacy, added to the surrealist feel, made as they seemed to be out of "found" objects such as a lampshade, a bin lid or an old umbrella.
In such a magpie-like collection, it was no surprise to find a magpie print: a literal rendering of the theme, for those still in the dark about McQueen's intentions. In heavy satin jacquard, it adorned a floor-length fishtail gown, in colours reminiscent of an Escher print.
All the prints were remarkable, from a vibrant white and orange harlequin to the garish clown faces appliqued onto a leather frock coat. But it was the eveningwear -if you can call it that - that most deftly illustrated the vaunting imagination of McQueen.
Given a gown made entirely of swan feathers, its shape so curvaceous that it looked hewn from marble, would your first instinct be to wear it, or archive it in a museum? One strapless gown, crafted entirely from tiny hen feathers dip-dyed red and worn with a metal body harness underneath, was remarkable in its intricacy.
In a season so bereft of surprises, the whistles and cheers that rained down on the designer as he took his bows proved just how sorely this level of creativity has been missed.
