The show by Chinese designer Caroline Hu was said to be a striking demonstration of her talent for craftsmanship and storytelling. Striking indeed. Like a cold draft in a couture salon.

Caroline Hu sets the tone from the start, or rather the philosophical intention: “Beauty is born from destruction.” Reassuring, in a way. It helps explain the condition of certain dresses. Her signature watercolor-effect smocking technique gives the impression that the fabrics have passed through an artistic rainstorm. A bit as if someone had left the textiles out in the rain hoping it might become a concept in the spirit of Jacques Mumuse.

To enhance the poetry of the moment, dried roses dipped in silicone accompanied the silhouettes. The idea was to preserve the fleeting nature of beauty. Mission accomplished: the flowers now have the longevity of a small plastic bathroom ornament for a solitary lady.

Another autobiographical moment of tenderness appeared in pieces adorned with hand-aged cotton knit, inspired by a towel the designer has supposedly kept since birth. It is touching. And one cannot help but feel a certain relief that she did not keep her diapers as well to push the fashion experiment even further.

The designer also had considerable fun with pockets, stacking them to create hypnotic patterns. Hypnotic indeed: one eventually stares at these pockets the way one watches a magic trick, trying to understand where the garment itself has disappeared.

In this show, the clothes seem to live a second life, sometimes a third, like a sentimental recycling project in which each piece appears to wonder what exactly it is doing there. And then comes the grand novelty: the first collaboration with Crocs. Yes, Crocs. Those shoes that have long been the discreet heroines of vegetable gardens and late-night trips to the trash suddenly become the partners of a manifesto of femininity worthy of LVMH.

One leaves the show with a very contemporary certainty: anything can become poetry. And Marcel Duchamp triumphs once again, as if with a worn towel, a plasticized rose, a turned-inside-out jacket… and even a pair of Crocs.

Such is the vastness of the possible.