Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s magnificent ex-creative director since April, delivered his first Valentino show on September 29. Like an extension of his cruise collection revealed earlier this summer, the Roman once again explored his favorite themes, such as vintage 1970s aesthetics, coupled with cinematic staging.
When Alessandro Michele walked through Gucci’s doors in 2015, he didn’t just impose his delightfully outdated, maximalist creative patte. He had also, with a demiurgic ambition worthy of Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, taken control of the entire image of the Florentine House.
For his first physical show at Valentino, which took place at Porte de Châtillon on September 29, the modalities seem unchanged. Except that yesterday’s maximalism gave way to a bourgeois aesthetic, less grand siècle than his previous creations.
It has to be said that the whimsical excesses he displayed at Gucci are less suited to the famous fashion house founded by Garavani Valentino in 1959.
In this new show, nostalgia for a bygone era is detectable, with the atmosphere ofan abandoned family home, as in the epilogue to Vittorio de Sicca’s Garden of the Finzi-Contini (1970), emptied of its Jewish occupants by Mussolini’s Faschist madness. Unless we’re dealing with a ghost ball, like the one in Stanley Kubrick’s Shining (1980).
The silhouettes of men and women on the podium seem to have emerged from beyond the world.
Suspended time
TheValentino show was undoubtedlyone of the most eagerly awaited – if not the most eagerly awaited – show of Paris Fashion Week Spring-Summer 2025.
All eyes were on the show’s new occupant, Alessandro Michele, in view of the stakes involved in this new creative act at the Roman fashion house.
And the atmosphere, as if haunted by the past, presented by the staging set to opera music, reinforced the dramatic nature of the event.
Indeed, how does one apply one’s style to a House marked by its co-founders Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti and the successful passage of color alchemist Pierpaolo Piccioli, who left last March in disillusion?
The staging of this Spring-Summer 2025 collection was therefore designed to show highly documented, almost historicist silhouettes strolling amid immaculate sheets covering furniture and décor elements, as if to question the impossibility of a blank page and, at the same time, the need to write one’s own history.
These veiled sheets – which are also the fabrics that make ghosts – and which protect as much as they conceal from view, found their way onto the silhouettes in veils, gloves or lace tights, whether scarlet or virgin.
“In this uninhabited space, where time is suspended, the floor is distinguished by cracked, shimmering floors of mirrors – a work entitled Passi by artist Alfredo Pirri. Their continual fragmentation invites us to reflect on our own perception of reality”, Valentino explained on its Instagram account.
Bringing Valentino’s mad chic back to life
Interviewed ahead of his show, Alessandro Michele had told Le Figaro newspaper, “I want to bring Valentino’s ‘crazy chic’ back to life on the street.” While Alessandro Michele’s beloved 1970s-tinged vintage reinterpretation, in the style of Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaum, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch…) is back, the Roman proposes to modernize this retro bourgeoisie with more contemporary and bohemian proposals.
Alessandro Michele seems to have learned his lesson and is proposing not a total stylistic aggiornamento, but continuity with the couture universe of the House of Valentino in its “golden age”, namely the shows of the 1960s and 1970s.
Ruffles and polka dots take pride of place on a steamy wardrobe with a haughty stance, while embroidered vests of gipsy inspiration and antique motifs on black velvet and paisley-print petticoats take center stage.
Referring to Garavani Valentino, Alessandro Michele reminded Le Figaro that “his name is part of the mythology of Rome! He was to the city what Prince was to Minneapolis in the 1980s. I often say thatin Rome, there was the Pope, the President and Valentino. He represented this inaccessible world of divas, aristocrats and crowned heads.”
For the new occupant of the imperial-red House of Color, in addition to a compatriot who doubles as a close city neighbor, Valentino embodies “the only Italian couturier from the golden age of couture before the 1980s.”
The 51-year-old designer adds: “He loved to celebrate life, he would celebrate life today. That’s what I want to do too.” This “crazy vitality” that characterized the founder, also contrasted with the “Parisian couturier à la Yves Saint Laurent, depressive and Proustian.”
High stakes
The maximalist aesthetic of Alessandro Michele, who had brought success to Gucci, had become tiresome and led to a drop in sales. After an abrupt departure in November 2022 and an 18-month hiatus, the designer returned to the spotlight with his arrival at Valentino in April.
This move is not quite the same as a change of employer,however, since in July the Kering Group acquired a 30% stake in the Roman fashion house, previously wholly owned by the Mayhoola group.
Under the creative aegis of Alessandro Michele and in agreement with CEO Jacopo Venturini, Valentino has decided to revive its couture spirit by reviewing the frequency and number of its shows. At Sunday’s show, the Roman designer foreshadowed resolutely mixed ready-to-wear shows, while Haute Couture will now offer just one show a year instead of two.
This is the perfect way to prepare for the changeover and give yourself the crucial time that Gucci and even Alessandro Michele’s predecessor at Valentino, Pierpaolo Picciolo, didn’t have.
Not one to hold a grudge, Alessandro Michele’s inaugural Valentino show was attended by a host of friends and loyal supporters, including Elton John, Harry Styles, Jared Leto and Carla Bruni, as well as Kering Group CEO François-Henri Pinault, accompanied by his wife, actress Salma Hayek.
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Featured Photo: © Valentino
