Putting it very simply, Demna just showed a collection consisting of all the Demna-isms that he established in just under a decade at Balenciaga. Straightforward, close-up presentation of clothes has been a feature of several shows in this ready-to-wear season—this was one. It’s part of fashion’s big reckoning with itself about what fashion is for, and who’s going to buy it—vexed questions swirling around the industry in these times of upheaval.

Demna called it: “a study of different ‘standard’ clothes,” meaning he’d designed a collection that methodically went through all the categories—and the characters—he has built as the known Balenciaga universe. Out came his scary men and women in corporate suits, his chic tailoring, his denim-and bombers streetwear, coded underground club and sportswear, his Cristobal couture-referenced eveningwear.

Debriefing in his fluent and subtle way backstage, he said that the presentation—plain and pared-back by his big-stage showman standards—was meant to focus on the “brainwork” and pattern cutting of fashion. “It’s easy to put a chair on the head and say, oh, that’s wearable art—or putting a parka upside down, (which) I kind of did for the last 12 years—and I love it, by the way—but also I felt like maybe I had enough of that.”

What we were looking at, he said, was “Demna 2.0”—wearing a suit—and renouncing the current state of excessive, performative fashion. “Costume is (a term) that I have a problem with a lot, because it doesn’t make me dream, to be honest. What makes me dream is the perfect suit that I can wear. That’s the hardest thing to do, and what I want professionally,” he said. “I don’t want another type of dream that I will never, you know, relate to. Do I really want to do something that is pretending to be fashion just because it grabs attention because of it? Or do I want someone to tell me, ‘this is the best coat I’ve been wearing for the last five years?’”

There were indeed some great looking tailored coats—noticeably narrowed in from the humungous shoulders Demna set as a fashion revolution over a decade ago at Vetements. Instead of gigantic trousers and monster trainers, there were sexily-cut pencil skirts, sheer black stockings, and high heeled pumps for women, strangely chiseled black leather shoes for men. Pulled-together chic—for a definitely more grown-up market—might be a better way to appeal to demographics who have money.

To cover his other market, there was the skinny-tracksuit section, a collaboration with Puma decorated with Balenciaga “Olympic” medals. It ended with more sportswear, but in the form of a couture puffer ballgown.

Yes, but, wasn’t this maze a metaphor for something bigger? His reply was telling. “A maze has multiple ways you can take, and destinations at which you can end by making this or that decision. I feel that’s a parallel with this moment in fashion, and in general. The choices are being made, and they determine where you are going to end up.” In the scrum, a reporter asked a follow-up question about the rumor that’s been swirling about his possible departure from the house. “Oh, really?” he replied.

“Fashion has become like this giant rumor mill—which is fun too, because people like the guessing game. But I think in that fog of rumors, what is important? Sometimes, I read more about rumors, and about who is going where than what we really want from fashion now. Does it make any sense? I’m staying with fashion forever. Maybe what I want to do now is just to make great clothes for my customer, for someone who likes what I do and kind of relates to that aesthetic and who understands clothes through wearing them, not speculating about them.”