Paris Fashion Week: Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing goes post-#MeToo with rebellious display

Metal boot tassels whipped fiercely against the models’ legs as they walked.

Spikes on stiff A-line skirts then led to menacing studs, kinky long black leather gloves and see-through or black PVC.

The autumn/winter woman, Balmain said, was born of the recent need to don “new defensive armour for battles that we hoped were already won”.

Whether this was a veiled reference to the post-#MeToo era, designer Olivier Rousteing was definitely in a fighting and rebellious spirit.

With signature excess, large 80s shoulders and ultra-cinched corset-like waists captured a notion of hyper-femininity, pushed to its limits.