Welcome back to the runway, Véronique Leroy! Her last show predated Covid to sometime around 2018; she’s continued designing since then, just out of the spotlight. But on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, her official 3:30 pm slot drew a wide swath of insiders who would have been admirers of her precision in distorting a silhouette; her palette that was intriguingly wonky; and most of all, her portrayals of femininity that intentionally interrogated good/bad taste. Anyone new to her designs might have wondered where she’s been all this time.

So what has changed, what has stayed the same? Regarding the silhouettes, there were throwbacks to certain mainstays: sleeves (angling out at the elbow then back to the wrist); her high-waisted, leg-lengthening pants; her dresses that softly accentuate the figure; her sculpted bow blouses—the more familiar, the better. Even the knickers worn over tights, sensible dressing aside, reminded us of styles she explored before they became au courant.

Collaboration funds can make things like a show possible, while also opening new design pathways. She worked with LiJin, a textile manufacturer on the southern island of Hainan in China where women weavers passed down dyeing and embroidery techniques over generations. Her blousy sweaters and chunky cropped knits in noticeably reworked patterns—enlarged, contrasting, pixelated—spanned earthy tones of clay and gray. In the absence of knowing whether there was traditional symbolism associated with the motifs, they brought fresh visual interest to her penchant for monochrome stylings. If a few of her newer proportions didn’t land as smoothly—the extreme boxiness of the coats—she nonetheless nudged her own needle in trying, and her tube shapes jibed with the attenuated lines of the season. As she explained backstage, “There is not one proportion; it’s that I play with the proportions.”

Indeed, no matter the whims of fashion, Leroy has stayed in her lane. And now, in that inexplicable way that trends loop around, or people catch up, her designs make a solid impression. But it was hard not to miss her usual infusions of color, and maybe this is why the models also had a more subdued air about them when they might have been more expressive. Among the Belgians who carved out a remarkable path in Paris, Leroy can make something of this moment given her excellent body of work. “At the beginning of my career, I played with codes like vulgarity, awkward women. And it’s like this has come full circle. I’m happy about what is happening. Even if it is not always pretty, I find it amazing,” she said. Here’s to finding what she unearths next season.