Sarah Burton tapped her fantastical imagination for Alexander McQueen to conjure up fashion week's most original show: Mixing insect-like armory with on-trend stiff bar jackets of the New Look, as well as 19th century crinoline.

If it sounds strange, it was - set to a backdrop of images of bees and honeycomb - with each model wearing a visor reminiscent at once of the 1950s wide hat, a cage and a beekeeper's mask.

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Have fashions over the ages, she seemed to ask, caged and protected us like in the natural world?

A cinched metal or tortoiseshell waistband - a recurrent Burton feature - which fanned out into a peplum in some of the looks resembled an abdomen of a wasp or queen bee.

The fascinating collection of 31 looks - which had fashion insiders amazed - was as thought-out as it was perfectly executed with metal mesh materials that sparkled mechanically.

The 1950s were visited in full skirts which mixed with structuralist fashion: Hard bodice cages, which showed the inner working of corsetry of the crinoline age, on the outside.

The last collections revisited the queen theme: Billowing structured skirts in beige, soft yellow and vermilion looked like a surrealist take on Marie Antoinette.

As ever, the Alexander McQueen's ready-to-wear show was Paris Fashion Week's most original, living up to the spirit of the designer who died in 2010.