The runway was set — a graphic re-imagining of Pink Floyd’s The Wall — and the mood upbeat, but the crowd was still buzzing with le scandale that shook Nina Ricci the day before. Say what you will, Liverpool waif Hollie-May Saker has made herself into a rising star, a contender on and off the catwalk.

As for Viktor & Rolf’s show, the designers offered their own unique spin on Brit rebellion, sending out an army of subversive schoolgirls deconstructed to an inch of their blazers. Rather than resorting to over-used punk clichés — they took to construction, piecing and re-piecing familiar shapes into unexpected ways.

The restrained palette of gray, navy and crisp whites provided the ideal canvases for some innovative techniques, from mash-ups of the shrunken blazer to architectural renditions of the knife pleat. Sure, there were a scattering of studs here and there, but the overall focus was construction, and a polished conceptual approach to dressing that fights with the mind and not the fists.