There was a prim restraint, and a sense of abandon, to this collection, which was a mash-up of vastly different eras, geographies and personalities. The maelstrom of color, texture and shape came down to one woman, Hélène Smith, a late 19th-century Swiss medium who time traveled during her trances, and drew the scenes she witnessed.

When it comes to muses, Erdem Moralioglu certainly can pick ‘em. Each season he hunts for interesting, creative women, many of whom turn out to be high-achieving outsiders. But he really outdid himself with Smith, a now-obscure figure who in her heyday was admired by surrealist artists for her ability to inhabit dreamscapes and return to tell — and illustrate — the tale.

At one point she even returned from a trance with a full Martian alphabet, and the corr

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