At Louis Vuitton and Valentino, Mapping the Season’s Genome

PARIS — A long, strange season it has been. One filled with ambiguity, rumor and infighting (Show now, sell now! Over my dead body!), that aside from some discernible trends — an elongated silhouette; leopard; the continuing popularity of lingerie dresses; the haute puffa jacket — has left most questions as yet unresolved.

Who will run Dior? Don’t know. What about Lanvin? The latest name whispered in the wings is Bouchra Jarrar. Is Hedi Slimane staying at Saint Laurent? Your guess is as good as mine. Do shows matter, or is it all about Instagram now?

Ah, for that we have a response. “Social media makes people think everything is accessible” said Maria Grazia Chiuri, a creative director of Valentino, backstage before the show. She was standing next to Pierpaolo Piccioli, her co-creative director, both wearing black trouser suits and white shirts (Mr. Piccioli also had on a black tie; Ms. Chiuri, a handful of rings) and talking about performance art. Which for them is a synonym for a show.

“But what social media cannot provide is a sense of the emotion of a group experience,” she continued. “We think our job is not just to do things you can consume, because you can see and love beauty without buying it. It is to give that shared happening.” So they did.

Against piano music by John Cage and Philip Glass played live on a baby grand set amid the runway came an ode to dancers past: Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham, Pina Bausch and Diaghilev. Some of it was wearable (pristine white shirts wrapped like a warm-up sweater, with a dark ribbon at the waist and ribs; pleated schoolgirl skirts and exacting navy coats), and some of it less so (a nude suede dress with draped spaghetti-strap bodice, the skirt sliced into studded ribbons to play with, and expose, the legs; a crinoline tutu). Though that was not the point. The effect — material doing fouettés and chassés around the body — was.