PARIS — No matter what anybody — critic, stylist, editor, photographer, buyer — thought or felt about the men’s wear designs rolled out here over the last five days, there was finally a single determinant of success: social media metrics.

This disturbing development became clear to lots of industry types when, in Milan, huge mobs unexpectedly turned out at Calvin Klein to see Cameron Dallas, a self-created social media sensation whom front-row regulars strained to place. Calvin Klein’s corporate media wranglers know him, though, as do his 9.7 million Instagram followers.

Suddenly, basketball stars and Hollywood celebrities seem so old culture. Who cares that you learned your craft and slept or clawed your way up the ladder of success? Fewer people are likely to recognize your name than that of a 21-year-old from Chino Hills, Calif., who has done, effectively, nothing.

The tension between dual positions defined virtually everything that followed both in Milan and then here in Paris. On one side were refined talents like Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, the Valentino designers, who season after season produce gorgeous — if prohibitively expensive — clothes rich in references to the contents of their own mature intelligences but equally to endangered crafts traditions. There were also designers like Lucas Ossendrijver at Lanvin, who last Sunday spoke with real feeling about the workers employed by that label (one rived by the recent firing of its women’s wear designer, Alber Elbaz).