For the Rochas Fall 2024 RTW collection, the inspiration was a 1939 photograph by Carlo Mollino entitled “Fairytales for Adults,” which shows a model stepping out of a wardrobe in a satin gown. Behind her, one divines a closet filled not just with clothes, but also with curios.

The collection saw Vigilante picking out French lace with a scalloped Art Deco motif, fashioning it into little slip dresses in champagne beige or black adorned with lacy ribbons whose tails were left to flutter.

The moodboard cited the indomitable Diana Vreeland, who proclaimed “the eye has to travel.” In addition to those slip dresses, several looks made a case for dressed-down fancy, for example in margarita green cargo pants cut in duchesse satin, or a two-tiered duchesse skirt in petrol blue paired with a lighter blue wool cardigan.

Many of the fabrics, such as a chocolate brocade, technical, froissé or dévoré velvet, and emerald satin, were lush. Most accessories and some of the clothes—a blanket wrap, a skirt sewn with curlicued silver ribbons—hinted at a sly wit and a taste for surrealism.