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Simultaneously with Taylor Swift, Sarah Burton entered her Showgirl era. For her second outing as the creative director of Givenchy, Burton heightened the intensity with collars adorned with sparkling rhinestones over collarbones, luscious peach maribou feathers, a pocket-rocket cocktail dress in vibrant red leather, and Naomi Campbell in a tuxedo jacket draped over a scant lace-trimmed bra.

Forging a Unique Path

Burton's tenure at Givenchy under a year, but the former key collaborator at McQueen has quickly defined a unique persona for the fashion house and for herself. The Givenchy fashion house, the spiritual home of Audrey Hepburn and the classic LBD, has a flawless lineage of elegance that stretches from Paris to Hollywood, but it is a relative minnow as a business. Her recent predecessors had largely embraced urban fashion and utility-coded metallic accents, but Burton is bringing back the glamour.

"My intention was for it to be provocative and alluring and to expose flesh," Burton said backstage. "When we want to empower women, we often adopt male-inspired styles, but I wanted to explore feminine sensibility, and the process of adorning and revealing."

Subtle seduction was evident, too, in a dress shirt in supple white leather. "All women vary," Burton commented. "At times when selecting models, a model tries on a garment and I can just tell that she prefers not to wear heels. Thus, I modify the ensemble."

Return to Glamorous Events

Givenchy is re-establishing itself in celebrity event attire. Burton has styled Timothée Chalamet in a butter yellow tuxedo at the Academy Awards, and Kaia Gerber in a vintage-feel ballerina gown of dark lace at the Venice film festival.

The Revival of Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli, the avant-garde design house, has been resurgent under the American designer Daniel Roseberry. Next year, the Victoria and Albert Museum will host the first major British Schiaparelli exhibition, looking at the work of Elsa Schiaparelli and the house she founded.

"Acquiring Schiaparelli is not about buying, you collect Schiaparelli," Roseberry said post-presentation.

Clients of Schiaparelli require no exhibition to tell them that these clothes are art. Art-adjacency is positive for revenue – clothes come with gallery prices, with jackets starting at about £5,000. And income, as well as reputation, is increasing. The setting for the event was the Centre Pompidou in Paris, an additional signal of how deeply this fashion house is connected to the arts.

Revisiting Iconic Collaborations

Roseberry revisited one of the iconic joint efforts of Schiaparelli with surrealist master Dalí, the 1938 “Tears” dress which is set to feature in the V&A exhibition. "This was about returning to the origins of the fashion house," he said.

The shredded details in the initial design were carefully rendered, but for the contemporary take Roseberry cut into the silk crepe itself. In both, the tears are chillingly evocative of flayed flesh.

Eerie Details and Playful Threat

A touch of threat is present at the Schiaparelli house – Elsa described her mannequins, with their sharp shoulders and cinched waists, as her plaything troops – as well as a cheerful embrace of wit. Fingernail-inspired fasteners and metallic nose ornaments as earrings are the distinctive language of the brand. The highlight of this presentation: fake fur crafted from paintbrushes.

Surrealist elements appear all over current fashion. Eggshell-inspired heels – treading carefully, geddit? – were highly sought-after at the fashion house Loewe. Dali-esque wonky clocks have walked the catwalk at the Moschino label. But Schiaparelli dominates this domain, and Roseberry oversees it.

"Schiaparelli clothes have an extreme drama which sucks the air out of the room," he said. A red gown was cut with a triangular panel of nude-hued fabric that was positioned approximately where a pair of knickers should, in a startling illusion of nudity. The balance between practicality and drama is a key aspect of the event.

US Talents Take on Paris

A carousel of creative director launches has brought two darlings of New York to the Parisian scene. Designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have left behind the fashion house Proenza Schouler they created in 2002 to helm Loewe, the Spanish leather house that evolved into a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) alpha name under the tenure of Jonathan Anderson before he moved to Dior.

The US designers appeared thrilled to be in Paris, France. Vibrant Ellsworth Kelly hues brought a cheerful pop art vibe to the in-the-know art smarts for which Loewe now stands. Banana yellow loafers shook their tassels like the fringe of Baker's costume; a red peplum jacket had the confident glossy contours of a ketchup bottle. And a party gown imitating a recently used bath sheet, plush as a newly washed cloth, captured the sweet spot where smart creation blends with sartorial amusement.