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Last season Nicolas Ghesquière explored the comforts of home from the summer apartments of Anne d’Autriche, queen of France. Today, in a moss-covered “neo-landscape” conceived by the Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle, he went on a different trip entirely.

It started with what looked like Turkish kepeneks, traditional garments worn by shepherds to protect them from the elements. This is Louis Vuitton, of course, so they were done in brushed animal hair or leather-trimmed wool. But even with the luxe treatment, they were among the most exaggerated pieces we saw in Paris, outside of Comme des Garçons and its offshoot brands. Much of this week designers have been trumpeting wearable, relatable fashion, clothes you can see yourself in. With these cloaks, Ghesquière was asking us to dream, or at least to get out of our sartorial comfort zones.

“When we started the collection, we wanted to work on architectural clothing that could express different cultures around the globe,” he said to a group of reporters after the show. “I think clothes are bringing us together, and it’s kind of a form of anthropology—to think about how people can find things in common in different parts of the world in their way of dressing.”

Typically, Ghesquière’s fashion anthropology has zeroed in on urban environments and the subcultures that call them home. Recall the Beaubourg show he staged at the Pompidou for fall 2019. This season his focus was the natural world, which is both the antidote to our hyper-online lives and, sadly, their victim.

The time he spends in his John Lautner house in the hills of West Hollywood may be shaping his newfound reverence for the natural world, but Ghesquière’s references were far more far-flung than that. People saw Peru, Nepal, and the Mongolian steppe in these clothes and accessories. The naive paintings of sheep embedded on several looks were the work of the Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko, whom Ghesquière got to know through the painter’s model girlfriend. Tweedy jackets were woven with forest creatures, and silk salopettes looked like farmwear given an LV spin.

He likened the effect of it all to “a new folklore, for the future.” Some of it really did look more ready for fables than for real contemporary life. Of course, there’s a reason that a folklore has built up around Ghesquière over his nearly three decades in fashion. Cool cropped leather jackets with eruptions of vegetal fur at the collars and short dresses in elaborate geometric collages will delight his believers.