Hot off the back of the announcement that Marc Jacobs will be judging on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 8, tonight the designer staged his AW16 show at New York Fashion Week. The show in question starred Lady Gaga, who took to the runway wearing an oversized grey coat, a yellow pussybow blouse and a pair of sky-high platform boots.

Gaga was joined by a roster of the industry’s most in-demand faces, from Pat Cleveland’s daughter Anna and bowl-cut beauty Peyton Knight to former Dazed cover star Molly Bair, who closed the show wearing an enormous chessboard cape. The singer’s appearance on Jacobs’ runway comes just days after her tribute to David Bowie at this year’s Grammy Awards during which she wore a gown created by the designer.

This season, the designer eschewed the theatrics that usually accompany his collections. Gone was the elaborate set (like the Ziegfeld Theatre of SS16 or Stefan Beckman’s Diana Vreeland set of AW15) and gone was the dramatic show music. Instead, he opted for an empty room – a vast, cavernous space – and the eerie, high-pitched sound of windchimes. The theatrics were still there, they were just in the collection itself.

Models tottered down the runway in towering platform heels, with their hair done in 20s-style finger curls and eye make-up so heavy that it appeared almost clown-like. With a mix of feathers and fur, rich embroidery and heavy embellishments, Jacobs rendered his silhouettes oversized, with sleeves falling down to the models’ thighs and trains billowing out from behind them.

This evening, Jacobs gave the fashion world one clear reminder: that he is a true showman.