By Rebecca Amir

The darker side of fashion doesn't always mean being a goth. There's a new darkness emerging that plays with gender inversions, unexpected fabrics and dead animals, challenging the perception of what is and isn't acceptable attire.

And interestingly, it's not just the bright young things who are doffing their caps to 90s grunge, barren futurists landscapes and way too much Revlon eyeliner; even established labels can't help painting it black.

Let's take Jaeger London's runway debut. The world was not expecting what Belinda Earl and Karen Boyd presented. Black, white and grey bomber jackets, feathers, black lipstick and Stephen Jones hats (some resembling Grim Reaper-esque hoods) far surpassed the anticipated British heritage Jaeger staples of cashmere and houndstooth.

These two fine stalwarts of British fashion were worked into the new Jaeger aesthetic – the houndstooth was in barely noticeable black and grey and the cashmere was teamed with shaggy goat-hair jackets and grungey green plaid. The tassels, the bits of leather – all wonderfully dark and unexpected.

Across the Atlantic, the latest offerings from Swaim and Christina Hutson's Daughters by Obedient Sons triggered similar thoughts to Jaeger's AW collection. There was something distinctly unwholesome and dark about their New York show. The models with their scraggly hair, pallid faces and fingerless gloves looked like cross-dressing urban ghosts – but in the most delightful way.

Everything about the collection played with the dichotomy of gender; from the masculine tailoring to the inside-out tuxedo jackets.

For a male twist on these slightly dark gender inversions we can even look at what Miuccia Prada did with her AW collection. She put a man in a tutu, she made the male model helpless by dressing him in a shirt that fastens at the back – and there's something unquestionably dark about the epitome of male perfection being totally emasculated.

However, without these flashes of darkness, fashion would never move forwards. The dark side is enlightening and unexpected. If Tate and Lyle's Golden Syrup reminds us that “out of the strong came forth sweetness”, then I shall say that in fashion, from the darkness comes forth the light.