It was Day 1 of the couture shows in a chilly Paris, and the Schiap pack were tottering around the Petit Palais in their gold-toe shoes and anatomical gold jewelry, swinging their bejeweled Face bags and waiting for the Schiaparelli show to start.

That they were a little — um, overdressed for 10 a.m. on a Monday didn’t seem to startle anyone. They had loosed the bonds of convention and entered that liminal space known as fashionland, where ball gowns at dawn are a perfectly reasonable response to the trauma of waking up.

“All I really want is to suspend the weight of reality,” Daniel Roseberry, Schiaparelli’s artistic director, said backstage before his show. “I hope people are transported, even if just for 10 minutes. That’s my goal.”

Then his first look appeared, a high-neck, long-sleeve lace top covered in enamel flowers and dropping into tiers of organza ruffles with the aged look of cloth dipped in tea, like a relic from the courtly era. And it was clear: We were entering a Trump-free zone.

Designers love to talk about “beauty” and “elegance” as their Band-Aid for the ills of the world; a panacea for the eyes, made to offset a reality that can be harder to see. Often this comes across as defensive; an excuse for not taking a stand on an issue or not getting involved. Sometimes, it can make the industry seem so out of touch, so determinedly frivolous, it’s paradoxically unattractive.