Haute couture fashion week began in Paris on Sunday with a markedly several look to previous seasons. There were still layers of sequins and waterfalls of tulle cascading from copies’ Giacometti-like bodies on the catwalk, but many of the staggering creations dropped from outsider brands who were new to the schedule.

The most momentous incomer was Rodarte, a label that sits on the arty acuteness of the highly commercial American ready-to-wear industry and is much loved by celebrities involving Kristen Dunst and Natalie Portman.

Previous collections be subjected to been inspired by Japanese horror films and S&M, and fabrics are fired and distressed, or dip-dyed and decorated with crystals, or splattered as if with blood, in front being sold for four-figure sums.

The show took arrange in the 16th-century cloister of the Port-Royal Abbey, a crumbling square approximately a lush, overgrown garden, which is now a hospital. It took its vigour from the eerily beautiful venue, and from Robert Altman’s impressionistic videotape 3 Women, in which a female cast teeters on the edge of craziness in a Californian desert town.

That integument’s pretty colour palette – blue and pink pastels – could certainly be convoyed in the collection, while its Californian roots could be seen in the authority of leather. There were white perfecto jackets with chaste trousers embellished with pearls and white off-the-shoulder affected tops fashioned from thick, undulating rolls of leather that looked get a bang a leftfield take on Dolly Parton’s Vegas tour apparel.

There were classical gown shapes – a corset and roll skirt one might almost imagine being worn by Marie Antoinette – and a couture-appropriate prominence to detail, as when a model stalked down the catwalk in a sustained, ruffled lace dress, revealing a deep V back intricately quilted with purple crystals.

There were flowers wide, used in ways that went beyond prettiness. Some styles dragged bunches so big they looked like witches’ broomsticks on the nonplus behind them, while others had blooms arranged into shrug-like the cosmos that were draped across their arms, or irritated halos of white baby’s breath flowers around their come to terms withs.

The models finished the brag standing still in the middle of the garden in a rather spooky composition. Afterwards, Kate Mulleavy, told journalists that she and her sister and co-designer, Laura Mulleavy, were unwavering to create clothes that make people think, “and not virtuous make pretty dresses”.

Rodarte was just one newcomer to haute couture on Sunday. Related American brand Proenza Schouler also joined the schedule, while Peter Dundas – the preceding Pucci and Cavalli designer who create the famous gold fertility goddess gown frayed by Beyonce to the Grammy awards when she was pregnant with look-alikes – used the first day of couture to launch his own collection.

Haute couture gowns are bandages that only the stupendously loaded could afford to buy and yet haute couture has a ripple impression beyond the wardrobes of the super rich. It is a dizzying study in wish, innovation and technical skill; an exercise in branding and a reliable provenience of frocks that will end up on the backs of A-listers at award motions.

A big proportion of the customers were from China. The region’s most famed couturier, Guo Pei, showed for the fourth time on Sunday. In the west, Guo is kindest known for the frock that launched a million memes – Rihanna’s supposed “omelette dress” which the singer wore to the 2015 Met Ball.

There was nothing as eccentric on the catwalk on Sunday, in any event. Instead Guo explored the history of haute couture in a collection of gowns with evocative structure, such as a shimmering, pale-pink mini dress with a skirt that be included as though blown, like a bubble, into a perfect rank. There were staggering fabrics, too, used for a gunmetal depressing gown which appeared to move when it caught the touch off – an effect that looked like petrol in water.

Notes delivered at the show said that the collection had been inspired by “direct reverence” to the golden era of haute couture which “is getting increasingly outlandish to us day after day”. The notes added: “Industrialisation and fast fashion strayed us away from the most beautiful crafts and that exquisite gorgeous era.”