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Paris fashion week: eight days, 90 shows, a cast of thousands, a budget of millions. And how many trends? Er, none, actually. Nada, zero, zilch. At a push, you could count florals as a trend, but predicting that people may wear floral prints in summer is a bit like forecasting that they will wear sunglasses or eat ice cream. When something happens every summer, it’s not a trend.Trends have become the comfort food of style, the clothes on which we mindlessly retail-snack. They govern how we dress, whether we like it or not. With catwalk interpretations in every store, and the high street bringing us a new look every three to six weeks (that’s our attention span for a new look these days, apparently) what we buy is almost inevitably trend-led. So the mood in Paris last week was uncertain and a little bewildered. Six months ago, designers marched us smartly into gothic black, body-con and power dressing. Now they are beating a semi-retreat back into romance and prettiness, and we are left wrong-footed. To add to the unease, while there is no one mood, no single direction to be gleaned from Paris this season, this does not mean that all outfits are to be deemed equal. Far from it. There will still be a fashion in-crowd – it’s just that this season, you can’t hope to join the club simply by buying the key piece, the puffball skirt or mustard-coloured jumper. The look of the moment is as exclusive as ever: it’s just going to be harder than ever to pin down.

We can start with butterfly wings. Fashion is, after all, the zeitgeist with a price tag, and micro-trends are as much a phenomenon of fashion retail as of electioneering. In his book Microtrends, Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief adviser, has identified trends that while small – linking, say, 1% of the population – can become extremely powerful in our internet era, in which like-minded people can find each other and join forces. Similarly, our sophisticated, fast-moving fashion industry can now lend momentum to seemingly insignificant trends; the choice is such that there is, arguably, no longer any need for the whole of womankind to sign up to boho. Certain motifs and ideas recurred in Paris, albeit without an overarching trend to link them.At Alexander McQueen, butterfly-wing prints appeared on a long, fluttery silk dress; at Miu Miu, they quivered in 3D on the front of a pair of sandals. Frock coats made a sequence of cameo appearances: in cream silk at Christian Dior, cinched tight in Prince of Wales check at Alexander McQueen, zipped at Givenchy, deconstructed at Hussein Chalayan. The subverted-French-maid look cropped up twice (super-short, like aprons without a skirt, at Miu Miu; in lime and white frills at Giambattista Valli).

The fact that the two noblest fashion houses of Paris – Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent – both chose stars as their motif of the season could be seen as a micro-trend; the appearance of turbans at Sonia Rykiel and at Hermès likewise, especially since turban-style wrapping was the inspiration and recurring theme of Francesca Versace’s first collection, Francesca V. Nor is the micro-trends phenomenon limited to Paris: in Milan, a fad for casual floorlength gowns – a wardrobe category that didn’t exist this time last year – made star turns at labels as diverse as Armani and Roberto Cavalli.

If butterfly wings, frock coats and French maids are micro-trends, there are some mini-trends around too. First up is simplicity, albeit unfortunately not simplicity of the jeans-and-white-T-shirt kind: this is statement (read, expensive) simplicity. For the first time in years, outfits made up of separates in the same print hit the runway: at Louis Vuitton and at Miu Miu, but most strikingly at Balenciaga, which about turned from last season’s Global Traveller (clashy-clashy, we’re calling it) to a collection in which every outfit was made up of a single print of a vibrant hydrangea or poppy. At Celine, the new mood of reborn, super-luxe matchy-matchy shone through in the hot pink cocktail dress, worn with perfectly matched bag and shoes. A complete no-no a month ago, this look has suddenly found favour. Victoria Beckham, who appears to have some sort of obsession with matching accessories to her dress, will be in heaven.

Nicholas Ghesquière said of his new collection that, wherever possible, each outfit was comprised of just one piece. The new statement simplicity means top billing for dresses – with playsuits and jumpsuits also making a strong showing as one-piece outfits. The headline dress shape of the season is strapless, with a bustier giving added shape at the neckline and the hips slightly exaggerated: this dress, in myriad guises, cropped up everywhere from Lanvin and Yves Saint Laurent to Agnès b.

Perhaps the most noticeable trend of the week was not, strictly, a clothing one at all. For the past five years, “It” handbags have been a fashion, retail and media phenomenon – at times, the cover star of Grazia has seemed to be as much the oversized, £1,000 masterpiece of YSL buffalo hide as the undersized actor carrying it. But suddenly, shoes rather than bags are where it’s at for the first time since, well, Sex and the City was on the small rather than the big screen. Just as many shows in past seasons have seemed to be little more than vehicles for the handbag cash cows, this season it was the shoes that seemed to jump off the catwalk.

At Miu Miu, for instance, the ultra-naivety of the clothes was belied by the fabulous, sophisticated shoes: T-bars, with gold teacup handles on the heels, and round-toed court shoes, with heels so high the wearer seemed almost en pointe, tied with ballerina ribbon criss-crossed at the ankle.

So how does all this translate into getting dressed? We fashion hounds have been gnawing away at this issue on your behalf all week, and what we have come up with is this: it’s floaty, but with a bit of a jacket, and a shoe with a good chunk of a heel. (Two shoes, obviously, with a chunk of a heel each, but after a month of catwalking, we’ve lapsed into the fashion singular: “a boot” rather than boots and “a jean” rather than jeans. One of our number, who shall remain anonymous, announced on Saturday that she was looking forward to a drink and “a nice olive”.)

The handbag-versus-shoe struggle is important here: while handbags and shoes are, arguably, both about sex and power, they represent different aspects of each. A handbag is more ladylike, a shoe more strident. And while a stiletto heel is a half-hidden menace, a stolid heel – this season’s choice – is an open threat. (Fuck-you shoes, rather than fuck-me shoes, if you will.)

Colour matters too. The French editors on whom I have had the most resounding style crush this season are both doing floaty-with-a-bit-of-a-jacket-and-a-chunk-of-a-heel for winter, but in black; come spring, they and everyone else will be doing it in colour.

There are two colour camps next season. Some labels, such as Lanvin or Louis Vuitton, are going with marzipan brights while others, such as Antonio Berardi and Vanessa Bruno, are plumping for blush: the colour of pale skin crossed with a pink party dress.

As to where to get your floaty with a bit of a jacket and a chunk of a heel look – I did warn you this season wasn’t the snappiest – I have to start with Vanessa Bruno, if only because the 40-year-old designer herself took her bow in possibly the best example of the look I saw all week: a blush-pink tuxedo-style jacket, worn open with a simple white cotton skirt and vest. The clothes in the show – especially the lace-over-lime shorts and lace-over-peach jacket – were beautiful too. Stella McCartney captured the look with soft blazers over elegant silk shorts; Antonio Berardi with jackets and trousers in silk the colour of full-cream milk. Some designers I shall refrain from mentioning decided to channel the “floaty” part of the look into those hideous low-crotch pants. Christian Dior captured the sharp/soft contrast with trompe l’oeil dresses made to resemble a waistcoat and long skirt; Loewe had jackets and shorts in sand-coloured suede. Nina Ricci, designed by Olivier Theyskens, put a darker spin on the floaty-plus-jacket look, so that the models looked like gothic wood nymphos. There are brands in Paris that march to the beat of their own drum. At Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs continued to experiment with imbuing new value to a fashion brand by means of artistic input, collaborating with artist Richard Prince on a range of handbags and shoes which deliberately challenged notions of quality. The LV logo, for instance, was stamped smudgily, as it might be in a bad fake. (Readers who follow catwalk sagas might be interested to hear that Jacobs’ backstage demeanour did nothing to suggest his tantrum with the fashion world over the bad reception to his New York show is over. After the show, he greeted Prince loudly thus: “Did you like it? Because there’s only one person who I cared if they liked the show, and that’s you. If you liked what we did with your stuff, then I don’t give a fuck what the rest of the world thinks.” Loud and clear, Mark, loud and clear.

Chanel next season was an ode to Americana: a prom queen with a camellia corsage. Alexander McQueen was a homage to Isabella Blow, with a high neck, a square shoulder, a tiny waist and a vertiginous heel for day; a romantic gown with a corset and some bosom for night. Lacroix was bright and shiny and beribboned, like fashion giftwrap. Hermès was jodhpurs, cocktail dresses with built-in pashminas, riding boots in hot pink crocodile; everything for the foxy maharajah. Chloé was, well, I didn’t get Chloé at all. Dingy layers for women who want to look soft but not pretty, kooky but not interesting, is the best I can come up with. This, in all, was a season which asked more questions than it resolved. But chin up – you can always wear florals.

While Milan had romance, Paris said it with flowers. The floral dance began at Balenciaga, where Nicolas Ghesquière delivered an electrifying collection in peony, rose, gladioli, violet and gardenia prints from the archives, digitally enhanced for supranormal shape and colour possible only in computer-land.

In sumptuous fabrics, such as silk faille and radzimir, his sculpted short dresses and micro-suits over shorts appeared as dazzling as sunlight on stained glass.

Shoulders were curved, skirts belled, corset-lacing replaced seams and the thong concept continued with metal-heeled gladiator sandals.

The theme was taken to the opposite extreme at John Galliano. Here all was softness, frills, retro bias-cuts and gentle pastels, with the emphasis on roses; printed on chiffon, appliquéd in silk and half-hidden within the folds of a ruffled peplum.

Elsewhere, florals were tropical. Antonio Marras at Kenzo hacked his way through a rainforest to produce exotic blooms, knitted in jacquard, beaded in sequins or splashed on silk.

Dries Van Noten focused on the jungles of Bali and Borneo, with mis-matched orchid, hibiscus and frangipani-print cotton and silk, wrapped and draped in sari- and sarong-folds, and variations on sarouel trousers.

Mini-florals came in wafting chiffon at Stella McCartney, or bunched into voluminous cotton blousons at Junya Watanabe. Christian Lacroix splashed Impressionist roses on demoiselle dresses. Limi Feu, daughter of Yohji Yamamoto, showed silver roses on black full skirts.

Alexander McQueen, eschewed the flower-strewn path, but poured his heart and soul into a collection of outrageous beauty in a tribute to his late friend, muse and mentor, the fashion icon, Isabella Blow.

Hourglass tailoring of exquisite precision; “geisha” silks; “samurai” leathers; feather-print chiffon; gowns hand-stitched with feathers and worn with silk butterfly hats and crystal dragonfly pillboxes by Philip Treacy – all a vivid reminder of Blow’s eccentric, stylish wardrobe.

Prints were important, even when not floral: stars and stripes at Chanel; leopard-spot and pinstripe at Dior; Minoan friezes at Sophia Kokosalaki; and rock-and-roll T-shirts with computerised “Old Master” mixes in Olivier Theyskens’s collection for Nina Ricci, accessorised with marabou and ostrich feathers.

Yohji Yamamoto explored the George Sand-Frédéric Chopin wardrobe in dramatic black-and-silver tailcoat-and-crinoline marriages, with “tattoo” prints.

Crinolines also starred in Rei Kawakubo’s cacophony of colour, print and global references at Comme des Garçons, while Jean Paul Gaultier inveigled feather and satin crinolines into his Pirates of the Caribbean in camouflage.

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