PARIS — If only Blaine Trump had been here to see it. The pouf skirt, relic of the go-go 1980s, favorite party dress of the Wives of Wall Street, is back. Only, now it is in the shape of a sleeve (singular). Also a waistband. That’s a tell.

It made its return Wednesday afternoon in the raw concrete innards behind the stage of the Opéra Bastille. And it made its return because Dries Van Noten , a designer whose arrival on the Paris fashion scene back in the ’80s as part of the Antwerp Six effectively provided an antidote to everything pouf-like, made a call to a man who was then king of exactly that kind of fantastical aspirational dressing: Christian Lacroix .

A man who scaled the heights of luxury only to later become its cautionary tale: the first brand that LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton started from scratch, and the first it sold, starting a downward trend that ultimately resulted in Mr. Lacroix losing the rights to his name , saying goodbye to the runway in 2009, and starting a new career as a theatrical designer.