Fear and uncertainty cast a shadow over the City of Light during the haute couture collections in Paris, which also had a surprisingly feminist bent.

A spate of high-profile robberies, ongoing fear following the terrorist attacks of November 2015 and trepidation at a Trump-led America infused what is traditionally French fashion's fizziest, finest hour with sobriety and an existential angst worthy of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Those robberies targeted exactly the kind of uber wealthy who sit front row at fancy fashion shows, including Kim Kardashian West, who was tied up while robbers stole millions of dollars of jewels from her Paris pied-à-terre during Fashion Week in the city in October. The following month, a balaclava-clad gang stole $US5.3 million of valuables from two Qatari sisters, and Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat was tear-gassed by assailants in a robbery that went wrong.

So it was hardly surprising that security at the haute couture shows – usually a mere matter of brawny-looking guards shepherding celebrities to their seats – took on more sinister overtones as they frisked attendees and sifted through innumerable designer handbags, the result of more stringent safety checks imposed throughout the French capital in response to recent events.

All sense of tension, however, evaporated as the catwalk lights came up. Haute couture did as it has always done in troubled times, and magicked up four days of pure escapism. Think glittering gowns that took hundreds of hours to embroider by hand, puffs of mille feuille tulle whipped up into billowing skirts and bodices encrusted with jewels, feathers and flowers. Think breathtaking beauty, unadulterated delight, and, just for a moment, a distraction from reality.

The best shows in Paris delivered enchantment in spades, including Christian Dior, which celebrated its 70th anniversary with a new designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and Schiaparelli, which commemorated its 90th anniversary with a return to official haute couture.

A leafy labyrinth and a scented secret garden led to the Dior show at the Rodin Museum in the 7th arrondissement, where Grazia Chiuri showed a collection of about 40 fairy-tale frocks. Think plenty of that aforementioned tulle, silk velvet gowns and bell skirts that swayed below bodices with delicate shoe-string straps. A masked ball followed in the evening.

Seventy years of haute couture

We may have missed the ball, but Australians will get a rare chance to see some of the garments in the show up close when The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture opens at the National Gallery of Victoria on August 7. More than 140 haute couture garments from 1947 to 2017 will be in display, including examples from Christian Dior's 1947 New Look collection and contemporary designs by Grazia Chiuri, the first female head designer at the fashion house.

American actress Kirsten Dunst was also feeling the female empowerment in the front row at Dior, taking the opportunity to talk about her new film Hidden Figures, which tells the story of three African-American women working at a racially discriminatory NASA in the 1960s in light of the US presidential inauguration and the women's marches.

"With the inauguration [of Donald Trump], it couldn't be a better time for this movie to come out. I'm so proud of its success," she said. "This film inspires women to come out and support other women in the arts and all women everywhere."

Haute couture is not especially known as a feminist stronghold. But coming as the Paris schedule did hot on the heels of the 673 women's marches across the world lent a surreal quality to some of the shows, where women talked feminism and frocks in the same breath in the front row.

Take Schiaparelli, for example, where British actress Thandie Newton – fresh from marching with nearly 100,000 demonstrators in London – sat front row alongside Kylie Minogue to watch lobster hats go down the runway.

Schiaparelli showed its own kind of powerful woman: bold, original and unafraid to make a statement. Design director Bertrand Guyon showed clever riffs on the codes of the house, a one-shouldered ivory dress with a bright red sash and a lobster printed across the front, recalling a collaboration between Schiaparelli and Salvador Dali in 1937. Celebrating the weirdness – both in the house and in this particular moment in time – felt just right. It resulted in one of the week's strongest collections, which included oversize capes, graphic carp prints and sleek tuxedo trousers made for confident women to stride ahead in.

The power woman was also present at Chanel, where designer Karl Lagerfeld showed a collection of tweed skirts and boxy jackets that recalled the '80s power woman in her authority and elegance. Pretty pastels were juxtaposed with highly structured silhouettes to deliver a surprisingly delicate take on corporate armour that recalled the wardrobe of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Valli's 'let them eat cake'

Giambattista Valli looked to a powerful woman from history for his show at the Archives Nationales, where Marie Antoinette's letters and the records of her dress fabrics are kept. The protest march this time was by members of the Confédération Générale du Travail (the French labour union), who handed out pamphlets against using the space as "a vulgar theatre of business" as inside Valli unleashed his version of let-them-eat-cake with a seemingly endless onslaught of extravagant silk, taffeta and tulle.

Fashion folk would be the very last to assent to the notion that orange can ever be the new black, so it threw couture goers a major curve ball when Giorgio Armani presented a collection dominated by the challenging colour at his Armani Prive show. If there's one place you want to make a statement, however, it's on the red carpet, and you could only wonder which tangerine creations Oscar nominees Nicole Kidman and Isabelle Huppert were earmarking for the Academy Awards ceremony as they sat front row.

A fashionista who baulks at tangerine is probably never going to be a client of Jean Paul Gaultier, the designer renowned for his maverick, over-the-top and sometimes controversial collections. For haute couture he looked back to the excess of the '80s via the ranch, with 57 looks that combined country elements such as headscarves, plaits and denim with city disco stalwarts including high-shine finishes, transparent lace body suits and acid brights.

A more sober vision of luxury came at Valentino, where designer Pierpaolo Piccolini presented his first collection following the departure of his design partner Grazia Chiuri. If he was feeling the pressure, he didn't show it.

This was a study in effortless grace, quiet strength and confidence – achieved via simple column gowns and elongated silhouettes softened with fragile, gently fluttering fabrics including chiffon, crepe and tulle. Inspired by Greek myths, the classical shapes, clean proportions, precise pleating and muted colour palette offered a soothing palate cleanser after the week's avalanche of sequins, feathers and tulle.

The result was a new generation of modern goddesses – a highly fitting closure to the January haute couture season.

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