The Spring/Summer 2012 women’s collections were rife with Gothic Lolita tendencies, doll-like beauty, fragility and frills, mixed with an underlying darkness and haunting undertone. From Comme des Garcons' constrictive frilled white looks, with fetishistic rubber head pieces created by Gary Card - to Giles Deacon’s macabre yet beautiful collection inspired by Cecil Beaton's early work included incredible sinister looking swan headpieces created by Philip Treacy. Whilst Alexander McQueen’s models were masked in intricate leather that resembled seaweed giving a fetishistic feel to the dramatic and intricate floor length creations.

Elsewhere, vibrant floral embroidery was applied to black sheer looks at Junya Watanabe, and Roberto Cavalli’s intricate gold embellished looks were concealed with sharp black tailoring. Yohji Yamamoto's dressing up box approach, with extreme proportions of monochromatic frills and over-sized hats added to the idea of adults playing with the nostalgia of childhood. Prada’s candy-coloured bathing suits and retro children's cartoon print dresses gave an eerie contrast to the wet-look bedraggled hair of young girls dressing in grown up's clothing.

Meadham Kirchhoff's Harajuku meets Courtney Love-esque dolls were covered in frills and bows, playsuits, bathing suits with matching trains and big blonde curly hair do’s. Lanvin's glamazons adorned with jewels floated down the runway in snake print smocks and on the final day of Paris, Miu Miu's soft folk print patchwork layers sculpted the body and took on a whole new entity when combined with the harsh red eye make-up and severe gelled down centre-parted hair.

Louis Vuitton encapsulated the mood with their show set on a moving white carousel, one by one the each model climbed off their horse and walked around the ride before exiting, Kate Moss being the last, eventually leaving the carousel eerily empty, with just fairground music playing - this nostalgic and playful regression to childhood  was one most memorable sights of Fashion Week.