Alessandro Michele’s Valentino couture debut was the most anticipated ticket of Paris Couture Week, and the designer didn't disappoint with a lavish spectacle at the Palais Brongniart, a fittingly historic backdrop for his past-meets-present storytelling.

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.”

Just a few days before Alessandro Michele’s inaugural Valentino couture show, the designer welcomed Vogue into his Paris atelier.