It peaked at Chanel, when designer Karl Lagerfeld built a giant, pure white coral reef as a mise-en-scène for a spring/summer show that included white shift dresses covered in mother of pearl-coloured sequins and skirts made from shell-like fans of pleated pearl-hued silk. Lagerfeld even had singer Florence Welch performing from inside a shell in a dress dripping with tassels that resembled seaweed fronds, like an indie-pop Botticelli’s “Venus”.

It continued at Alexander McQueen, where designer Sarah Burton’s inspirations included “the ocean bed, seashells, anemones and the crests of waves” and clothes came in “barnacle jacquard” and “seed-pearl barnacle lace”, along with mother-of-pearl and oyster-print chiffon.

And it washed around the whole season, at Mary Katrantzou, Versace, Holly Fulton, Issa and Givenchy, where designer Riccardo Tisci riffed on fish scales made from chiffon, sequins or leather cut-outs, and used materials such as shark, eel, seawolf, salmon and stingray accessorised with giant shark tooth pendants.