W&T takes wild show close to edge

For once, a designer who claims to be wild, lethal and trashy, lived up to his name - and surpassed it. Walter Van Beirendonck, the Belgian who designs the label W&T (Wild and Lethal Trash), staged the show to end all shows at Paris's equivalent of the Raymond Revue Bar, the Lido on the Champs Elysee on Wednesday night.

Armoured gladiators stormed the stage, a wild black horse galloped so close to the edge that photographers were left cowering, a larger-than- life Flash Gordon pterodactyl, swooped above the stage, and a carousel of black-plumed go-go dancers rose from beneath it. There were fountains, too, and storm-troopers with multi-coloured foam-sculptured wigs marched towards a stunned audience.

The spring/summer collection for 1996 is called Kiss the Future. Van Beirendonck may have been looking to 2013 for inspiration, but the clothes, a vividly-coloured mix of photo printed T-shirts and utility jackets and trousers, are in tune with today's techno-clubland. This was a Virtual Reality computer game come to life.