“There is a need to dream now and go beyond this moment.” So said Stefano Gabanna before he and Domenico Dolce showed their fall Dolce & Gabbana collection. The designers thus took on the Surrealist movement as inspiration, a theme implying mystery, random associations, visual tricks and an abundance of ideas, one would think, from which to pilfer. And there were obvious, delightful references: leather gloves masquerading as scarves and hats, shoes cut like a woman’s profile, broochlike buttons featuring golden, gloved hands clasping coral fans.

Such extras decorated lavishly done-up clothes: a pouf-shouldered ribbon-weave checkerboard dress, an LBD with giant ruffled shoulders, an astrakhan coat with shaggy goat sleeves of Schiaparelli “shocking” pink (the mostly black-and-white show’s key accent color) falling from enormous shoulders, a mirrored suit with fur pouf shoulders, a jacket with scalelike, scalloped mink shoulders. Virtually everything was powerful and pretty.

Yet if it sounds repetitive, it was, and too often familiar. We’ve been seeing shoulders galore all season, a trend Dolce and Gabbana helped jump-start last spring with their fabulous Pajama Baroque outing. Here the shoulder action too closely recalled that show, while dominating the runway to the extent that the goings-on beneath it sometimes got lost. Many of the reed-thin, belted dresses and suits looked lovely, if wanting in diversity, even if the designers did work in some strong coats and a delightful Marilyn moment that ranged from a T-shirt to a grandly quirky ballgown.

But the show lacked more than range. Given their motif and their penchants for humor and high drama, one wondered why Dolce and Gabbana focused on such a small, obvious portion of the Surrealist lexicon.