Around the year and throughout the world, big clothing designers unveil their latest looks through elaborate presentations. They’re not just models walking down a runway anymore. How weird are these shows? So weird that we’re writing about them here, where we rarely cover anything as fancy as fashion.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Jana Nedzvetskaya’s spring 2015 collection made its debut in an even more water-logged way. Each of the Russian designer’s models showed up their dresses by walking down the runway, as is the usual case. But there was a swimming pool placed at the end of the catwalk, and after they did what they came there to do, each model dived into that pool.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

Chanel launched the runway show for its spring 2017 collection in Paris with a couple of models walking out onto the stage dressed in the company’s signature tweed suits, the ones favored by founder Coco Chanel. But these weren’t regular models. In addition to the suits, the two women were dressed head to toe in shiny white plastic that made them look like robots. It fit the stage design: a server farm, with row after row of towering racks of computers with cords and wires hanging off.

BACK(PACK) TO BASICS

The runway show touting Rick Owens’ spring and summer 2016 line led to fashion writers generating an odd new phrase: “human backpack.” What better way to describe the show’s unique presentation: A model would come on to the stage with another model hanging upside-down off of her, legs wrapped around her neck. Hey, that way they could show two new outfits at the same time!

SPACE IS THE PLACE

Designer Nick Graham technically introduced his 2017 fall and winter line for men at a New York City show, but he titled it “Life on Mars 2035,” embodying a futuristic, space-age theme. Graham is so interested in space exploration that he opened his show with a lecture about interstellar travel from Bill Nye the Science Guy and hired real-life astronaut Buzz Aldrin to be one of his models. (Both men dressed in shiny silver clothes.)

LIFE’S A BEACH

The Chanel collections for spring and summer 2019 were introduced on a specially built set made to look like the place where those new outfits would be well-received: a beach. Models walked barefoot, carrying their shoes, along a “runway” made up of real sand, as actual waves crashed at their ankles. There was even a lifeguard tower in case anyone swam too far out (to the sea-and-sky backdrop).