Powder that wig: Paris fashion designers enlightened by the Age of Enlightenment

Dries Van Noten and Christian Lacroix channelled "Barry Lyndon", Andreas Kronthaler and Vivienne Westwood Mozart, and on Sunday US designer Thom Browne went potty for Madame de Pompidour.

With designers' falling out of love with streetwear, Paris fashion week has gone nuts for the 18th century.

Even streetwear's main man, the American Virgil Abloh, rolled his clock back this week putting Gigi Hadid in a trailing pink puffball gown and another model in a zipped raincoat worn like a cape.

'People want fantasy now'

"There has been the whole idea of practicality" with sportswear dominating the catwalks for several seasons, said the British hatter, who created the show's towering headgear.

"But I think people want fantasy now."

Britain's queen of punk Vivienne Westwood has always had a soft spot for 18th-century decadence.

And her Austrian-born designer husband Andreas Kronthaler found a surprisingly elegant and modern "Rock Me Amadeus" note in their Mozart-inspired show Saturday.

Paris fashion week has gone nuts for the 18th century.

'Really out there'

With "Game of Thrones" actress Maisie Williams (who played Arya Stark) in Browne's front row, Jones said another reason why designers keep coming back to the age of Enlightenment was because "the 18th century was really out there".

"What we wear nowadays is really calm and restrained compared to what people wore 200 and 300 years ago," he told AFP.

Van Noten, who took Stanley Kubrick's classic 1975 film about an 18th-century Irish rake as the inspiration for his show with veteran creator Christian Lacroix, agreed.

The Belgian, known as the "King of Prints", said he had to tone down the original acid colours of historic patterns that caught his eye.

 
A model presents a creation by Akris.

"They were anything but shy," he added.

All that corsetry and bodices begging to be ripped have a kinky sexiness that also strikes a chord with designers.

Fashion's enfant terrible of the moment, Demna Gvasalia, known for his post-Soviet Munster models and his cynical take on branding and consumerism, may have made his name with $800 hoodies.

But the biggest shock the Georgian cooked up in his show on Sunday was following up a fetish dress with a line of crew-necked velvet crinoline ballgowns that brought to mind Miss Scarlett from the boardgame Cluedo.

Agence France-Presse