Take Rei Kawakubo’s code words for each season and run with them – wouldn’t it be great if they, and their collections, were compiled into a career-long compendium?

Hatching was her catalyst this season. As we sat in a space at the Place Vendôme, derelict apart from the oblong box we were housed in, models walked with buckle details peeling back layers of cloth; sleeves sprouted,  elongated; and longer hems were layered under shorter tailoring.

To a Jon Hopkins techno soundtrack, a driving organism of a record that emerges from itself, trousers were ruched together like skin to be grown into and there were manic, cartoonish prints, a visual overload.

This show had its dark side. Those buckle details and the cut-off, ape-length sleeves had a touch of the straight jacket. As did the opening section with models harnessed into tiny leather t-shirts at the back. The models’ eyes were fixed, under heavy black make-up.

For all the positive connotations of that word, hatching, we forget there are just as many negative too. What happens when the throttle of the mind, a powerful engine, gets jammed open?