Front row gasps: Nicole Kidman and Kim Kardashian co-star on the Paris runway

Demna, who started at Balenciaga in 2015, and Daniel Roseberry who delivered an exquisite collection made for the Hollywood red carpet at Schiaparelli earlier in the week, understand this new era innately.

“What Demna is doing with Balenciaga couture is making it really relevant now,” make-up artist Inge Gronard told Vogue. “There were pieces based on the past, but he gives it that touch of now.”

It is the same stab at relevance that has been applied to the show’s venue, at the renovated original location of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s haute couture studio, 10 Avenue George V, Paris.

“The concept of the couture store is a gateway to couture, which remains a very closed universe, especially for new generations,” says Cédric Charbit, chief executive, Balenciaga. “In this new store, products, made to measure services and retail excellence are a reinvention of the Balenciaga client experience. It is exciting to be able to present this level of craft, creativity and made-in-France savoir-faire in our historical address.”

The couture house closed its doors in 1968 when in the face of Mary Quant mini-skirts and Biba fast fashion, its founder decided that times had changed too greatly. Balenciaga’s favourite client, the extremely wealthy Mona Von Bismarck, who once ordered 150 pieces when parts of her wardrobe were lost in a train accident, locked herself away in her Capri villa to cry for three days.

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This time the only tears were from the screaming fans outside the show, who Balenciaga executives are counting on to keep the newly polished doors open for decades to come.

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