Last month at Loewe’s FW24 menswear show, Richard Hawkins’ avant-garde creations decorated Jonathan Anderson’s collection. This season’s womenswear brought another artist into focus: American painter Albert York. The artist’s mid-century works lined the walls of Château de Vincennes, which had been transformed into a green labyrinth, honouring a hue which appears in nearly every piece of York’s artistic oeuvre. The halls were filled with a synth-infused remix of Yoko Ono’s Hell in Paradise.

York’s idyllic landscapes and floral still lifes sit on the periphery of the pastoral, exploring notions of class and wealth which trickled into the core of Anderson’s offering this season. Dissecting the Etonian morning suit in experimental tailoring and beading motifs borrowed from the floral tapestries found in the drawing rooms of stately homes. Roses, daisies, and tulips bloomed on everything, from wide-leg cargos to draped gowns, while foilage weaved its way across billowing skirts which swelled as models walked. Referencing the creatures who inhabit York’s saturated paintings, birds sat atop branches on knitted co-ords and a crystal-encrusted dog found its home on a sculptural mini dress.

Something only Anderson knows how to do is turn the nonsensical into the norm, and this season his surrealist edge was felt across melted tartan checks, jacket lapels built from clunky metal or carved wood, beltless buckles, and the blue-tinted pixie cuts worn by models. There was an inherent joy and playfulness to the collection summed up by an Albert York quote that fronted the show notes: “I think we live in a paradise. This is a Garden of Eden. Really. It is. It might be the only paradise we’ll ever know. And it’s just so beautiful. And you feel you want to paint it.”