When one-liners don’t work anymore

The Olympics are going to Rio. Sometimes, no matter how well dressed you are, you still don’t get what you want. (If you want to know what that has to do with a fashion review, just think: context.)

In any case, there was partying in Brazil over the weekend, and there was likewise partying in Paris, albeit for a different reason: it was the Nuit Blanches, and the streets were thronged with strolling families and flirting teenagers, chatting, whooping, singing and otherwise having a very jolly time. The runways were a different story however.

Aside from a few ill-judged attempts at frivolity, days three and four of Paris fashion week were notably low-key. They were also occasionally melancholy, sometimes thought-provoking, and once even hectoring. And they began to repudiate the idea, recently taken as holy style writ, that fashion should be entertainment. The one-liners – badda-bing, badda-brocade! – just didn’t work.

Consider case number one: Viktor & Rolf. The stage set was beautiful: a giant globe made from sparkling crystal on one side, singer Roisin Murphy, in profile, wearing a tent-like tulle creation and standing in front of a microphone on the other. But it also provided a clue to what was coming: clothing cabaret.

How else to explain the notably unflattering geometric ruched tulle-covered mini dresses bristling giant ruffles, the tulle porcupine-meets-Crazy Horse jackets over satin tap pants, and the finale of giant tulle ballgowns that looked like they had been pruned with a chainsaw, so a skirt was full on one side, flat on the other, or had various chunks carved out of the frou-frou?

In the same way, the humour at Martin Margiela is beginning to seem less than amusing: the irony in a false-fronted jacket or a long dress with its own dragging not-ball-but-chain is more about the object itself – isn’t it funny that we made this?! – than any subtext. Once upon a time, the exaggeration of details had a conscious, occasionally challenging, relationship to the world outside, but these days, its primary relationship is to itself, as is increasingly the case with Jean-Paul Gaultier, where the designer seemed to have abandoned all pretence at reflection and instead embraced a self-referential theme. Past hits such as the cone bra, silk railroad-striped overalls, the trench (here in a terrifying orange, paired with an orange jumpsuit), tribal marking in the form of faded “denim” bodysuits and athletic gear, such as sequined shorts – they were all in there for next season. Gaultier called his collection “The G Spot”, a nice little bit of wordplay, but no one laughed.

It wasn’t until Vivienne Westwood produced another one of her petitions – this one for Prince Charles’s Save the Rainforest campaign – and asked everyone at the show to sign a supportive card that had been placed on their seats; and then announced her show was a “call to action for all eco-warriors: dress up!”; and then put her collection where her crusade was by leaving edges on her draped, wrapped silk skirts in their raw, “natural” state, graffiti-ing slogans across the chest of her stretch tulle minidresses and otherwise bringing her ball-gowned “royalty” down to earth by messing them up that the watching public showed any sign of involvement. Fashion being an acceptable part of political theatre these days (see the Obamas’ Olympic journey), but not, it seems, the theatre itself. After all, we have other things to worry about.

This perhaps explains why the single most important garment on every other runway was the jacket: symbol of seriousness, responsibility and, for many, work. Or perhaps not by next spring, if certain designers have anything to do with it.

Case in point: Yohji Yamamoto, who cut his versions Edwardian-governess-tight, with puffed sleeves and boned bodices, paired them with miniskirts occasionally cut to show a rhinestone-studded garter, and then followed them with gracefully cut white cotton shirtdresses that topped black shorts, and then black versions of the same, crafted from a “lace” of shredded moth holes.

It all ended with floral print jackets and skirts with the same eaten-away aspect, a covert suggestion that there is beauty to be found in the end of an era, if you just know where to look (the shops) – an idea that also showed up on Ann Demeulemeester’s runway. There it came via silk-screened prints of doves and flowers that flew black against white silk and denim to create “suits” of relaxed jackets over cropped trousers and silver sequined t-shirts, sometimes hung with ropes of chain, and the net effect was romantic and nostalgic – more so, certainly, than her oddly hard-edged leather cummerbunds and familiar asymmetric zipped leather jackets. We hadn’t quite been there before.

And Junya Watanabe likewise had tailoring on the mind, specifically Michael Jackson-tight-and-cropped-trousers under peplum’ed, curving jackets in Prince of Wales check, pinstripes and houndstooth, which then gave way to dresses and more suits cut in varying sizes of race-car checks that draped and pulled across the body to create a whole new set of curves. Not one seam was straight, and every one mattered.

As to why all this focus on a old standby, however, it fell to Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons to show instead of tell – and it isn’t “because everyone has to look hardworking now” or “there just aren’t that many shapes in fashion and coincidentally we all decided to concentrate on this one this season”. Rather, Kawakubo chose the standards of fashion, like the cutaway, the little black dress, the trench, the evening gown, the corset and, natch, the jacket, and then remade them as if to challenge their original tropes.

So patchworks of sequins and pinstripes and brocade and the arms and shoulders of other garments became new garments themselves; the trench was reimagined in sheer nylon; and the military greatcoat became a puzzle constructed of shape and swirl. By de-contextualising the basics, Kawakubo suggested, it might be time to rethink not just your clothes, and all the assumptions implicit in how a wardrobe functions, but perhaps the world in which we wear them as well.

After all, by the time we get to Rio, who knows how things will look?