The Théâtre de Châtelet was the fitting setting for Robert Wun’s collection, enhancing the drama of his surrealist aesthetic. The audience was ushered through disorienting darkness onto a blacked out, carpeted stage to be seated in the round.

Wun’s inspirations are often cinematic, but this season his starting point came from real life, namely the frenzy and confusion he experienced behind the scenes during preparations for last year’s Met Gala. This led to an exploration of identity, and how we present ourselves through what we choose to wear or how we style our hair.

“I want to start a narrative, almost putting together a movie of what it means for people to transform to become someone they desire to become,” he explained backstage as the models rehearsed walking in the elaborate designs in the background.

Part whodunnit, part get-ready-with-me, he explored the different stages of preparing for what was to be a very strange day. The opening look summed up waking up in the morning, memories of the evening before hazy. A white satin quilt became a dress, embroidered with vivid red crystals evoking bloodied handprints. A mesh veil was embroidered to appear like blood dripping from the model’s mouth.

Wun’s clever use of trompe-l’oeil continued throughout in his plays on tailored shapes, usurping collars, ties and jackets, blowing them up into obscure proportions, applying them to the front or back of corseted bodices, or subverting their primary uses, as on a series of jacket-shaped bags, evoking hangers, for instance.

Extra arms protruded from under the clothes or emerged as bolero-like sculptures that looked to be exploring alternative gestures. At times it was difficult to tell the models’ real limbs from the prosthetics, although the former came in handy for hitching up a skirt here and there. This alienation was accentuated by the incorporation of elbow-length gloves with false nails that matched the embellishments on the clothing. Explorations of cut and color in jagged shapes and pleats were a transposition of a new hairstyle.

The bride, with her full skirt in layers of blush tulle, wore a molded bustier, indented with the imprint of defensive hands on the hips, a miniature mannequin lying over her head supporting her veil.

Not to spoil the plot, but it was Robert Wun, in the theater, with the scissors…and plenty more besides.