Imagine a fashion show in Paris, and you probably wouldn’t influence up with a sea of scowling models stomping between stalls in a flea call while an aggressive synth soundtrack boomed.

That was the set up for Vetements’ autumn/winter 2018 expose at the world’s oldest antiques market, Paul Bert Serpette, in the Saint-Ouen sector of the French capital.

In only a few years, Vetements has risen from ingloriousness to become one of the most influential labels in fashion, producing humorous visual jokes that appeal to the internet’s sharing curtness, such as the infamous £185 DHL T-shirt that became the shape hit of summer 2016.

This time there was no single logo to home in on. This was a tell designed to raise the heart rate – and not just with the music, as prototypes pelted down the catwalk in clusters, presenting so many togs in so many clashing charity-shop patterns that it was difficult to cognizant of where to look.

It began with Vetements’ stylist and catwalk orderly Lotta Volkova wearing rich-lady sunglasses and an inside-out gilet. She also burdened a glamorous headscarf, as did a good number of the models, often with baseball outdoes peeking out of the front.

There were surly slogans on T-shirts – from “I don’t control, thanks” to “I’m not deaf, I’m just ignoring you” – and a range of imprints across garments, from camouflage trousers to Marilyn Manson littles to patent boots bearing designs of postcards of Zurich, the diocese where fashion nerds will be aware that Vetements has recently up stuck.

There were scarves tied around shoulders, and jumpers and shirts thonged around waists and coats worn on top of coats. There were so multitudinous layers that at times models’ bulky silhouettes were reminiscent of the vista in Friends in which Joey puts on all of Chandler’s clothes at one time.

As the source of so many recent crazes in fashion, from logo socks to “homely chic” trainers to haute hoodies and frayed-hem jeans, course watchers would have been paying close prominence. Judging by the footwear, the next big thing may well be thick-soled Buffalo Boot-style boot-trainer composites that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Camden store in 1996.