There are some shows no one wants to miss. So today was a busy day for fashion troopers who sat listening to the crosspatch horns of taxis hoot with frustration at the gridlock Paris traffic as they made their way from Vivienne Westwood to Jean Paul Gaultier. Two visionaries who make performance art of their shows, inviting us on a fantastical ride along the pathways of their imagination. So diverse and eccentric are the references bandied around backstage, there's inevitably a pause in the frantic scribble-scribble of beauty editors as they look up, frown in bewilderment, then write them down anyway.

So I refer to my trusty notepad that reveals the inspiration at Westwood to be the Ashaninka tribes people of Peru meets 19th century couturier, Frederick Worth, for a result that was all about 'ethnic urbanism'. A wonderful insight into the workings of Westwood’s mind that translated as broad brush strokes of tribal red and blue on some models and what make-up artist Val Garland called a ‘mean, pinched cheek’ and white polka dotted skin on others.

Just a hop, skip and taxi hoot away and I passed a Mohawk-ed model before meeting the stern, swooping, black-as-night brow of another with a wet look twirling top knot at Jean Paul Gaultier. This, said make-up artist Lloyd Simmonds, was ‘couture punk’ for a show entitled ‘Brits in Space’. A sort of Sci-Fi rebellion, if you will.

And as models were readied to go up, up and away into another world, walking calmly through the whirl of beautiful, punky, aliens was Jean-Paul. The sole calm, collected character in amidst the chaos.

These may not be looks we’ll be trying at home, but we sure enjoyed the ride.