“And I was dreaming, dreaming, about movie stars, dreaming about everything beautiful in the world. My mother said, you are a dreamer. You always dream, dream, dream, about stupid things. I was always so attracted to magazines, to films. I had a sister and she took me for the first time to see some films, and to me it was the dream of my life to see those beautiful ladies of the silverscreen. You know for me, a young guy of thirteen, to see this sort of beauty… I think, from that moment, I decided I wanted to create clothes for ladies.” Valentino Garavani’s voice, which we lost a few days before the show, was the one to open it.
Who would’ve thought, back in the 1940s, when Valentino’s dresses were still just an idea in the head of a 13-year-old boy, that those silverscreen stars would one day become iPhone stars, dressed in Valentino red and awkwardly peeking through a hole in the wall, all in the name of the maison’s craftsmanship, 64 creative years later? About those holes… ever heard of a Kaiserpanorama? Don’t worry if you haven’t, it’s a late 1800s invention. Michele built intricate wooden orbs with “windows” for the guests’ eyes all around, the model standing in the center. Then the lights went down, the model shifted behind another hole, and suddenly you had a new one to peek at. You had no choice but to slow down and actually look. No rushing, no distractions, just a moment to lean in and appreciate like a polite little spy.
And what would a couture spy see at an Alessandro Michele for Valentino Couture show, you ask? To start, Valentino rosso, 1920s feathers on the head, a mythic queen’s crown, 1940s Old Hollywood glam, Medieval sculptural shapes, 1980s shoulder pads at full drama, sequins flirting with sheerness, sheerness flirting with volumes, volumes flirting with drapes. Basically, everything bold you can imagine, and then some. Fashion really does still draw from films.
People argue that Michele’s work doesn’t look like Valentino’s. Of course it doesn’t. If it did, fashion’s Last Emperor wouldn’t be the last one. Heritage is great, nostalgia is fun, stories are lovely, but a maison can’t be frozen in time. Respect it, love it, take notes, then let it breathe. The world moves, fashion moves, and after 2025, it’s pretty clear that creative directors move too. Here’s to new talent honoring the past, and the familiar ones finding the right way forward. A storied house grows with its people, not just its seams.
“Today, Valentino’s absence is real, tangible. It tears open a deep and painful void. Nevertheless, his presence is still warmly felt.” […] “His passing does not stop the movement he set in motion. Rather, it calls on us to live up to what remains. And we continue to work within this space: not to fill an absence, but to preserve it. Only by accepting such a void, with no intention to fill it, can Valentino’s legacy remain what has always been: an idea of beauty conceived as a noble form of responsibility toward time, bodies and the world we are given to cross.”
