There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and that Walter Van Beirendonck’s Paris show will be absolutely bonkers. This season there was something extraterrestrial in the air as the models in the show had long, skinny alien fingers, developed by Anti-Static. Alien-head motifs also appeared on the back of long coats and, as always, there was a body suit with a fluorescent orange alien on it.

The aliens aside, the theme behind this runway was new ideas. “The boom of vintage or archival clothing, although a fantastic step towards a more sustainable fashion world, makes for few interesting or unseen volumes walking the streets,” read the show notes. “The nostalgia for the looks of old subcultures leaves little space for mind-blowing new techniques, applications or cuts to land on the runways.”

Therefore, Walter looked entirely toward the future. In his tailoring he experimented with new lengths and shapes, using innovative techniques. There were also jackets with huge rigid brace-like collars, headpieces that enveloped the whole upper-half of the body, and knitting patterns that were generated by AI.

As Walter himself put it in the show notes, sometimes you just need to “put on a Stephen Jones hat and strap on those silicone extra-terrestrial fingers.” We could not agree more!