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Anyone who is still in doubt that the most popular sculptural art form of the 21st century is the shoe should view the Marios Schwab version when it appears in a store window next spring.

Shades of bondage?

Well, obviously. These days a shoe isn’t a fashion shoe unless there is something kinky going on. Maybe it’s because the body-conscious trend, which Schwab helped to revive last year, has made suction-tight clothes of the kind that Victoria Beckham favours, complete with football-shaped breasts, so unerotic.

Anyway, into his fetishistic shoe Schwab has injected some genuine innovation.

With a heel that has been hollowed into a V-shape and multiple ribbons covering the front of the shoe, it proves that, as far as footwear is concerned, ingenuity has yet to find its limits.

Some designers would have been content to rest on their laurels based on that shoe alone. But Schwab is fast shaping up to be a considerable talent, having graduated from Central St Martins College of Art and Design only two years ago.

That’s a relief all round. Along with Christopher Kane and Gareth Pugh, who showed on Sunday, Schwab has been riding a tidal wave of hype, and a lesser designer might have drowned. Not Schwab. While his previous shows clearly owed a debt of inspiration to Azzedine Alaia, yesterday’s stood on its own. Schwab still loves to encase a body, but his dresses have moved on from straightforward, contour-clasping style to a subtler look. Now they’re pulled and draped around the body, closed at the front, unexpectedly open at the back, with some featuring abstract floral prints.

Breasts are delicately outlined by twists of fabric rather than the more emphatic seaming and metal cups previously favoured by Schwab. The effect is sexily modern, especially overlaid with the industrial-looking zips that Schwab has featured in most of his creations. Some zips, though, appeared to be more decorative than functional, especially the one that was suspended from a narrow neck collar down a naked back.

But so what? They looked great and the zip is fast shaping up to become the erogenous foil that a row of hooks and eyes snaking down a corset once was.

Zips also featured in the collection of Luella Bartley, showing in London after a five-year sojourn in New York. Hers zigzagged across her luscious-looking patent shopper bags. Bags are big business for the Luella line – as the Perspex floral hairclips from yesterday’s show will no doubt prove to be. Bartley has just opened her first store in Mayfair and she knows that sometimes you need a quirky badge or hair grip to lure in a cautious browser. Hook a teenager with a Batman mask (she had those, too) and she could be yours for life.

Besides, Luella featured a cute cocktail dress – she always does – and this time it was pink, pleated and tiered, with a giant black bow. It will look a picture on Lily Allen, who was seated in the front row and who has become a dream mascot for young designers.

Bartley also showed nifty fitted twinsets for the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (her other dream client), although the Duchess probably wouldn’t wear them with the high-waisted, camel coloured shorts with which Bartley showed them. Sadly, the Duchess wasn’t there but Lady Helen Taylor was, so Bartley fulfilled her rock and royalty quota. Some Italian designers would kill for that. This collection was stuffed with commercial “pieces” – delectable floral mini-dresses, some with sequinned bands, skinny silk trousers and matching blazers, “punk-lite” stiletto patent and lace-up boots. Yes, it always comes back to shoes.

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