The intergalactic flight attendant who opened the Gaultier show in Paris tonight exhorted the audience to stop using their phones ahead of take-off. It was a joke, of course, but heaven forbid anyone took her seriously: what followed was one of the most Twitter-able shows imaginable.

It was like one of those immersive 3D films you get at funfairs, a whirl through a space odyssey (and th pop charts of the 1980s) as envisaged by France's institutionalised enfant terrible. On the soundtrack was an electro aria from Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, for which Gaultier designed the costumes in 1997.

Jersey, lurex, lame, plastics and metallic leathers made up the clothes, which drew on the Sixties space-age (a trend already seen at Marc Jacobs and Gucci this season), and cyberpunk (never not a trend among those who subscribe to it). Futurism mixed with retro in an irreverent mash-up, with leg of Martian shoulders (thank you) atop tough biker jackets, transparent vinyl trousers and an au courant fur bomber jacket.

The counter-intuitive opening set the tone: this was a collection of juxtaposition, although one felt the clothes came second to the spectacle - and that's no problem, given the extent of Gaultier's empire already. Models carried handbags in the shape of those iconic JPG fragrance tins, as if to prove it.

Chintzy chiffon sat with punkish zips across knitwear and jersey; tailoring was slick but in a sporty vein, worn with nylon tubi astronaut hoods to complete the ruse; and most surprising of all, there came a Union Jack phase, informed first and foremost by a Camden punk flavour but then in a more regal and disco-ified air, with models wearing crowns and leading mini-mes in sparkling Union Jack suits. Oh, and the whole capitalist affair took place at the Communist Party's HQ in Paris.

Most striking was the juxtaposition between 'real' models and a street cast of punks and club kids, diverse as they come in terms of age and race. Gaultier is one of the inventors of this, although the catwalks of autumn (and indeed campaigns of recent seasons) have seen a fair amount of mixed mannequins this time round.

It became clear that what had at first felt like a space oddity - so thematic! so fun! so... green! - had emerged as an odyssey: the journey M Gaultier has undergone to become a designer of international repute, with women's, men's and children's ranges that appeal across nearly all demographics. 
And if the punk trope was a strategic decision that means he acquires a few more fans in Britain, then so much the better.

View all the looks from the Jean Paul Gaultier Autumn/Winter 2014 collection