Indeed, on Sunday morning, the city was accidentally given over to fashion. Personal cars were banned from Paris streets for the day with the aim of reducing pollution. So aside from the bus or tourist shuttle, the only vehicles snaking through the misty streets were chauffeured cars and taxis, most filled with editors and retailers. And fashion created its own little traffic jam in front of Givenchy, which only heightened the sense that this industry exists in its own little world.

And yet, when it’s at its firing-on-all-cylinders best, fashion does reflect the world back at us. It magnifies those details that might be easily missed but which define a particular moment in time. It turns an emotion or a mood into something visual.

So when fashion shifts, particularly at brands that are so engrained in the culture – Givenchy, Balenciaga – take notice. For better or worse, the winds of change are blowing.

CREDIT: Olivier Claisse, MCV Photo

In a season, Givenchy has transformed from former designer Riccardo Tisci’s gothic passion to Keller’s dispassionate populism.

The first model down Keller’s runway wore what appeared to be a midnight blue coat dress with metallic buttons. It called to mind the history of the house and suggested that, perhaps, Keller would find kinship with its classic past. But no. Soon the rhythms of rock ‘n’ roll style – more Rolling Stones than break-out indie band – appeared on her runway, with leather mini-skirts and trim striped pullovers.

The women’s clothes included lace tanks with a long skirt, and dresses with a modest slit that revealed a burst of contrasting pleats. It was the kind of collection in which any fashion lover could probably find a thing or two to buy. And appealing to a customer’s desires is a designer’s duty. But where is Keller in all of this?

The collection had a hint of this designer and that designer. Ideas and inspiration are always floating in the air, but who, exactly is Keller? What is her point of view? What is her take on the culture at this moment?

For a lot ff people, despite the decades that have passed, Givenchy still calls to mind perfect little black dresses, Parisian chic, Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Sabrina.” It hasn’t been those things in a generation or two, but it takes a heck of a long time for fashion to worm its way into the popular imagination and once it does, it takes a lot of dynamite to dislodge it.

Designer Riccardo Tisci spent a dozen years at Givenchy blowing thing up. He built its reputation as a house with a dark romanticism. And he attracted his share of 21st century celebrity clients, notably Kim Kardashian.

Tisci gave Givenchy a renewed sensibility, focused on a bold visual language. He stumbled through false starts and a good bit of criticism. (Would anyone want to be forever judged on their very first attempt at, well, anything?) His aesthetic was a far cry from what Givenchy was at its inception. But it was right for the times, with its diverse range of influences, its openness to street culture and its flair for the visual provocation.

Whether one ever purchased a single Givenchy garment, Tisci’s work still told us something about who we are and how we see ourselves in this moment.

CREDIT: Jonas Gustavsson, MCV Photo

That sense of individuality is what has propelled Demna Gvasalia to Balenciaga. His collections exude a quirky exceptionalism. His models are both the traditional beauties as well as women who might be described as striking, eccentric or jolie laide. His runway was diverse in both ethnicity and age. And his clothes are studiously unattractive, with their garish colours, oversize shapes and embrace of such aesthetically maligned brands such as Crocs.

Gvasalia embraces the oddball and the outsider and declares each an every one of them welcome on one of the fashion’s most rarefied runways.

His collection for spring was filled with pencil skirts in colourful bouclé, oversized striped shirts left half-untucked, trousers in a collage of fabrics or photo-printed in the searing orange and red of a sunset.

Coats were attached to coats like front-to-back conjoined twins. Handbags had their own little rain ponchos, and he collaborated with Crocs to created platform versions of the aesthetically challenged rubber clog.

Gvasalia relishes in elevating the banal and the poor into the realm of desirability and luxury. He believes there is an inherent beauty in the misbegotten. He not only remembered the forgotten, he celebrated them.

But now, have we moved beyond recognition and admiration into fetishizing? Is his self-conscious, pointed fascination with the most maligned products still moving the cultural conversation forward – or is it just giving people permission to not care, and to walk into brunch in grubby old slippers?

Perhaps we have a responsibility to try putting aside individuality to participate in the social contract of aesthetic civility. I wear shoes to brunch; you wear shoes to brunch. Fair?

For spring, Gvasalia has put a polish on Balenciaga. It’s not so aggressively un-charming. And in return, he has given you Crocs.

AUTHOR: (c) 2017, The Washington Post · Robin Givhan