Couture designers ‘inspired’ by Ed Hardy, Björk and more

Fashion designers love to wax poetic about abstract and obscure inspirations (garbage bags! Byzantium! Puccini’s “La bohème!”), but we can’t help but see things from a different perspective, especially when it comes to some of their madcap couture creations.

The week-long, members-only extravaganza known as Haute Couture Week wrapped Thursday in Paris. As always, it provided a healthy stock of red carpet contenders, but just as many looks were meme-worthy and awash with pop-cultural references. Here are our picks for the wackiest.

Valentino

Designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli have revived the house of Valentino with elegant, austere collections met with unanimous acclaim, but Wednesday anyone with eyes suffered an unexpected, instantaneous flashback to Björk’s infamous Marjan Pejoski swan dress. In their defense, the show was inspired by a slew of classical operas, so why not make an improved version of the biggest fashion low-note in history?

Yiqing Yin

Though relatively new to the couture scene, French-Chinese designer Yiqing Yin makes the kind of otherworldly clothes that leave people talking for days. And Lady Gaga — she wears them. So it only made sense when Yin sent out an ensemble that looked curiously similar to the Franc Fernandez meat dress Lady Gaga donned at the MTV VMAs in 2010.

Viktor & Rolf

As their avant-garde designs illustrate, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren love a visual thrill. But the thrill turned into an outright horror when the Dutch duo cast members of the Dutch National Ballet to dance en pointe while looking like characters from “The Grudge.” Terrifyingly frizzy hair and deathly pallor aside, the women danced a lovely, lyric presentation.

Jean Paul Gaultier

The great JPG has a knack for creative camp, so it was no shock that the French designer delivered a collection that could very well serve as Elizabeth Banks’ wardrobe in upcoming sequels of “The Hunger Games.” Gaultier’s gaudy goodness is pure Effie Trinket — dramatic, colorful and a full-on evocation of Capitol couture.

Maison Martin Margiela

The mysterious, Factory-like design team behind Maison Martin Margiela may have looked to Frank Lloyd Wright textiles and Gauguin paintings when crafting their latest couture line, but our eyes went directly to the stuff that looked like straight-up Ed Hardy. The vivid tattoo prints could have come direct from Christian Audigier himself, so this one’s for you, Jon Gosselin.