The bleepy intro of “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service looped in the rainy garden of the Belgian consulate in Shanghai. Many guests huddled under umbrellas, while a privileged few including Consul General Pascal Buffin and Vogue Runway’s laptop-tapper were accommodated in some biodome-esque shelters that had been constructed around the raised temporary runway. These cued Qiu’s conceptual metaphor for this collection: “It’s a bubble. Of memories of certain times, of the past and the now.”

As well as silks from her home in Hangzhou, Qiu built out her collection with fabrics sourced from Italy, India, Africa, and elsewhere. The looks were often quite classically formed but then distorted surprisingly through detail and contrast. Neatly tailored suits were warped beyond convention though expanded collars, paneled hems, and shaped buttons. A long dark coat, quite royal-on-official-duty, was edged at the collar and hem with dark fringing cut through with sparse but vivid colored strands. Organza dresses embroidered or appliqued with metal-tinted floral shapes and botanical brushstrokes floated off the body and were sometimes cut in a helter-skelter spiral down it.

There was an opening burst of tightly textured dark bouclé that needed to be stared at to reveal the subtle fuzz of pattern it carried. Sequins were variously spattered as if at random on a kaleidoscope sheath dress or ordered between small and silver and larger and golden on a longer, spectacularly graduated gown worn below a tough cropped jacket in brown cracked leather collared with faux fur. Boots were sometimes toe-capped with lace, and heads sometimes wrapped in strangely clinical helmets of twisted metal tape. Gently surreal and attractively whimsical, this collection came to a close as a machine in the middle of the runway erupted a stream of bubbles that were promptly nudged down to the lawn and then remorselessly burst by the gentle pressure of the afternoon rain.