For his first haute couture collection for Valentino, Alessandro Michele dropped a stack of paper the size of a dissertation on each seat. Held together by a metal paper fastener were pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness lists. A random sampling: the description for look 37 included the sequence “petticoat, tundra, eschatology.”

Watching his debut couture collection come down the runway in Paris this morning was a much-needed distraction from the mess of our current political situation—a momentary balm in the form of strange,