At Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Metamorphosis

PARIS — When it was reported, back in July, that the outline group of Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, whose vision of Valentino-after-Valentino had pushed the brand to billion-dollar status, was separating, and that Mr. Piccioli would have been in sole charge of the house, there were various cocked eyebrows. Industry watchers promptly started to play the speculating round of "who did what," and think about how things may change therefore.

On Sunday, with Mr. Piccioli's first solo gathering, they found their solution. "This is my stylish truth," Mr. Piccioli said backstage before the show.

What's more, learn to expect the unexpected. It turned out his truth was not that unique in relation to reality that had preceded.

The back story was rococo and included (of course) and associated Brancusi and representations of London youth from the 1970s, Giotto and Bianca Jagger, the Gutenberg printing press and online networking. Not that it mattered, fundamentally, since — once mixed together — the mark state of mind (high sentiment blended with simple urbanity overlaid with elegance) was still there.

So was the natural outline (round-necked, prolonged, with tight shoulders and sleeves), yet somewhat looser and more liquid than it has been before. The detailed weaving — likewise, however this time around it was frequently disconnected into basic sewing, similar to etchings on silk, or changed into a print: Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" as rethought by Zandra Rhodes (Mr. Piccioli enrolled her as a teammate); angle developing into winged animals from Ovid's "Transforms," whichever way regularly suspended from a velvet yolk.

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Valentino: Spring 2017

CreditGuillaume Roujas/Nowfashion

Likewise, red, the first Valentino shade, now changed into pink and fuchsia and burgundy. What's more, cowhide peacoats and a stupendous white calfskin dress suspended from spaghetti straps, with the skirt produced using just two rectangles of texture, their edges left to fall in rivulets down the front and back.

Undoubtedly, if there was an eminently unadulterated Piccioli distinction, it might have included a softening of the line and the disposition; a lessening of the strict rigid edge that had given the mark about pressure before. Numerous dresses essentially coasted around the body, as haute laborer coveralls, with drawstrings at the abdomen and sides so they could be molded freely.

Be that as it may, the impact was unobtrusive. The most startling thing on the runway was somewhat compact lipstick case on a gold chain threw over a shoulder, a surreptitious declaration of the brand's first corrective. Steadfast Valentino clients may not see a distinction.

This bodes well: Mr. Piccioli did, all things considered, create the past Valentino stylish. To a specific degree it was dependably an outflow of him. Also, he is, whether you acknowledge his similitude, exactly toward the start of his transformation.

Which raises some intriguing conceivable outcomes around the shape — Animal? Mythic? Mineral? — of things to come.