It was a wake without a corpse. There is hardly a delicate way to put it. Alexander McQueen (whom everyone who ever briefly made his acquaintance now refers to by his first name, Lee) was impious by nature and would likely have said the same were he alive.

The last show of 16 works (“outfits” is too meager a word) completed by the designer before his suicide last month was held in a gilded salon at the 18th-century Hôtel de Clermont-Tonnerre for small groups of 20 people, who perched on boxes covered in gold leaf, as an aria by the histrionic German coloratura soprano, Simone Kermes, filled the bright but somber room. Ms. Kermes was a McQueen favorite, and her music was on his iPod when he died. One after another, the models came out in what could probably best be called raiment (gold-leaf cock feathers covered one tunic) and moved with exaggerated steps that called to mind dressage, although these high-strung ponies looked hypnotized.

Fashion is an emotional business. And if the predominant feelings one encounters are not all that wholesome, there is no denying the sincere outpouring produced throughout the industry by Mr. McQueen’s death. This week people went around town carrying little tote bags stenciled with his name. Hussein Chalayan opened his show with a recorded tribute to the only colleague who ever gave him much of a run for his money in terms of fashion spectacle. François Pinault, the billionaire head of PPR, the multinational holding group that owns the McQueen label, made a rare appearance at the show, in a blue wool suit and lavender tie. Head bowed in the attitude of a mourner, Mr. Pinault was there out of respect for the late designer but also to reassure Mr. McQueen’s fans that there will be continuity.

But what form will it take? Will the team headed by Sarah Burton, Mr. McQueen’s longtime friend and assistant of 16 years, take over? Can another brilliant designer be found to fill Mr. McQueen’s shoes? Will the company’s sales, which spiked after his death, fall off a cliff after next season’s shipments arrive and consumers realize there is nothing left by Lee McQueen to buy?

“We’re still working it all out,” Jonathan Akeroyd, the company’s president, said in a hushed antechamber as people waited to enter the viewing room. “The company will go on, but for the moment the reality is that everyone’s still in shock.”