Kanye West returns to Paris Fashion Week

Each of these things is a form of practice, he said. Get back on the horse, design and present. Very Zen and, as he said, wabi-sabi (Japanese aesthetics that embrace the imperfect).

But are the clothes new? Made almost entirely of muslin and wool and fleece, they were closer to the calabasas-colored clothing style of his Sunday service outfits than military looks from the beginning of Yeezy, or leggings from athleisure meta- Kim from recent years often modeled by his wife, Kim Kardashian West.

The pants and jackets had a cloudy texture of separate wool and swirled together in cirrus swirls and a loose, swaddled feel; padded jackets twisted above the head and fitted in front of the mouth as protective gear against hazardous materials (I've always been obsessed with hazardous materials, said Mr. West). Puff pockets at the waist or cropped were sewn to inflate in various forms of cumulonimbus. Axel Vervoordt, the Belgian antique dealer who was the interior designer of Mr. Wests' house in California and who has a penchant for brutality, nature and wear and tear a life well lived, has been verified.

Mr West said he had stopped doing what he described as merch four months ago because he was no longer pushing himself. When I started, he said, everyone said: just make a t-shirt. The Row just made a T-shirt, because people had to compare celebrities. But we really fought not to make T-shirts, then I looked up and I only made T-shirts.

So he decided to try something different. That was it. What was meant to dress the service industry the nannies, housekeepers and chefs, he said, the people he suggested have been overlooked by fashion. Then he said: The idea is to be in the service, like the Sunday service.

It was true. The clothes, the show and the conversation were like a big job in progress; the gestation of ideas not yet fully realized, but nevertheless presented to the world. It was ego? Was it fashionable? (Is there a difference?)

Yeah, cool, cute, hit his eldest daughter. Whoa.

Well, a little. There is nothing revolutionary in the silhouettes or structures, but in the end, the clothes are the least because they seem more and more to be intended for other more formal designers, who focus on the production and the atmosphere rather than the product. The Yeezy merch (it's still the merch, but Balenciaga and Dior is too), as a memory of kinship, no classic taste. Not the taste in the old definition of the word highfalutin, as a kind of aesthetic judgment of the elite woven in brocade and silk faille and transmitted from above, but rather the taste of the community, attitude, success.

This is what the whole monumental and entirely last-minute vision of the show for the street serves, the rickety performance, the howling crowds, the editors rolling their eyes but always listening to everyone of his words. This time he did it in his own way, rather than the systems' way. Like it or not, this is how a big chunk of all that shebang can happen.