If we're to glean anything from the parade of vicuña-trimmed bootees, jackets made from goat hair (very creepy) and crocodile handbags with mink linings, it is that some of the more angst-ridden luxury labels are not even trying to pretend that what they do is refined or chic any more. Instead, they've have gone hell for alligator in pursuit of new money in fresh markets.

Some designers however, aren't hiding behind “luxury”. Quite the reverse. These are the ones with the ideas: Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent; Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga; Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton; Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons (of course) and, in Milan, Miuccia Prada. Their mood is austere. Between them, the silhouettes and proportions they've cooked up - a rounded shoulder, towering necklines, padded hips, longer lengths, higher-waisted, crescent-moon shaped trousers - are highly unlikely to make it to a wardrobe near you in the immediate future. The winces of the buyers in the front row every time a calf-length dirndl skirt in brushed alpaca or Donegal tweed swept past said it all. But watch this space, because these are designers with a proven repertoire of ideas that sooner or later seep into fashion's bloodstream.

For the first time in more than a decade there's an impulse to invent something genuinely modern, as opposed to the usual retro remixes. As ever, Paris had the most fascinating ideas, although often these had to be construed from what was absent rather than what was shown. Bags, for instance, present at the flashy houses, were invisible at the more forward-thinking ones, replaced by statement costume jewellery: not just cuffs any more, but enormous ropes of pearls and tribal bits of metal. Obviously, we're not going to abandon bags (unlike Corine Roitfeld, the Editor-in-Chief of French Vogue, who pronounced them un-chic, which is all very well if you have a limo 24/7 to hold your bits and bobs) but they'll be more discreet. Bad-ass shoes continue to be the key purchase. You could wear most of last winter's clothes with stomping platforms next winter and look bang up to date. Given that the “entry” point for a pair of Louboutins is now £450, maybe that's just as well.

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