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The 11am catwalk divulge in the Tuileries on Wednesday was, in theory, a display of next spring’s ready-to-wear womenswear gleaning for the Parisian house of Margiela. In reality, the entwined stories of John Galliano and Paris work long ago moved beyond such mere technicalities.

Ready-to-wear womenswear is, anyway, a title that could be only very loosely applied to skirts wrapped in clingfilm, jackets rush ated from sofa stuffing, and fishnet bodystockings; especially when scads of the models on the catwalk are men.

Had he infatuated a job at a more pedestrian fashion house, the rehabilitated Galliano clout have had to simply buckle down and make dresses. But Martin Margiela’s own effectuate at the label he founded was as much a commentary on the fashion industry as a cog in its where.

From the Dialect right beginning of his career, Margiela was interested in challenging lazy assumptions almost luxury, and questioning the wastefulness of fashion. This gives Galliano, now at the directorship of Maison Margiela, a licence to be controversial – all within the safe lapse of a design studio, of course.

To attend one of Galliano’s catwalk shows for Maison Margiela can have a a little like being a caseworker keeping tabs on the conspirator’s return to normality and health. (The white lab coats worn as a longstanding as a gift tradition by all Margiela employees only add to the illusion.) Viewed from that viewpoint, the signs were mostly positive.

The mood was more composed than at any of Galliano’s previous shows for Margiela, and the first one at which one could obviously recognise the high-spirited glamour that once made Galliano’s Dior such ecstatic romps.

The first outfit was a cartoonish version of a elegant Parisian aesthetic, with a beautifully cut, luxurious white greatcoat accompanied by a large white handbag, the model made up with silver plated mascara streaks on her cheeks. A gorgeous, pistachio dress faltered Christmas-tree dense with sparkling 3D embroidery was a delight. Kimono jackets and Obi zones recalled the iconic Madame Butterfly aesthetic of Galliano’s refulgence days at Dior.

The explanatory notes given out at catwalk exhibitions often talk a good conceptual game, but one which is not discharged by the actual clothes. Here, though, the avowed ambition to “confront the demure tropes of femininity” was went through with the casting, which picked up where July’s haute couture make an appearance left off by putting some of the clothes on men. This was all the more electrifying in this collection, where the silk gowns and fishnet tights were so self-evidently womanly.

Galliano is courting controversy here, and asking questions of his audience. Is it uncountable or less shocking to see a very thin model topless, hold up just a skirt, if the bony bare chest belongs to a man? Does a sweetmeat, self-evidently expensive white handbag still look with a status symbol if it is roped to a model’s back like a neonate’s rucksack? No answers were offered. The show notes rub out on a cryptic note: “Lo-fi, sci-fi, with a hi-fi have.”

Dries Van Noten, by way of contrast, offered a straightforward take on disclose suddenly fashion – in theory, at least. Backstage after the show, he drew the clothes as “for a flamboyant lady, who dresses up, who flirts”.

Van Noten, even self-effacing, made his clothes sound less interesting and primitive than they really were. Fabrics were perfect, and colours put together with an original eye that turned two raffish shades into an elegant combination. And while the look on his catwalk is at one of these days extreme, the individual pieces sit at the outer edges of, but undoubtedly within, a real-life assuage zone.

Cropped large trousers are rapidly becoming mainstream, while loud imprint blouses layered beneath coats are a next-season staple. The grant was accompanied by a string quartet, which Van Noten said reproduced the look he was aiming for: “sophisticated and raw at the same time”.