Securing an invitation to Alessandro Michele’s first runway show for Valentino at Paris Fashion Week was like finding one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets.
The display was the most eagerly anticipated event in a week devoid of other major designer debuts. Space was a luxury, as Michele opted for a set dotted with antique objects cloaked in dust covers, placing guests on sofas and chairs around a cracked mirror runway.
Backstage before the show, in a headily scented dressing room dotted with patterned carpets, Michele was feeling the pressure. “How can you be not stressed?” he said. Fortunately, friends including Harry Styles, Jared Leto, Florence Welch and Elton John were there to cheer him on.
The million-dollar question was how the former Gucci creative director would reinterpret the heritage of the Italian house founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, who came to show his support.
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To a large extent, Michele had already played his hand with the surprise reveal of his resort collection in June.
Many of the key ingredients of his Valentino vision were there: echoes of the ‘70s and ‘80s touching on hippie chic, bourgeois classicism, and brand codes such as ruffles and the brand’s signature V logo. New for spring was an emphasis on polka dots, a Valentino trademark that Michele had yet to mine.
They appeared on everything from trim tailored jackets secured with satin bows to a men’s dinner jacket; a retro-style cream day dress with a dense ruffled black collar, and a stunning featherlight sheer black ruffled evening gown worn with a dipping wide-brimmed hat.
He compared plunging into the Valentino archive to swimming in the ocean, and came out with a torrent of looks — 85 to be precise. Each model channeled a character, from 1930s debutante to ‘80s socialite, aristocratic bohemian, thrift store magpie and, of course, his signature Margot Tenenbaum look.
If it all felt an awful lot like Alessandro Michele, he made no apologies for it.
“Yes, it can look very me, in a way. I’m here, and it’s me,” he said. “You are what you are, and if you are working with yourself, really, not acting as someone else, it’s impossible that you’re not going to see me, and I think that doesn’t make sense.”
But Michele sees himself as a custodian, and was confident that the founder, now 92, would recognize many of his signatures.
“It’s a real house with a real owner, with his chair, his table. It’s like you are a guest, so you need to do a deep dive. I went through the things, all the little details, the ruffles, the bows, the polka dots, the colors, the embroideries, the embellishment, also the synthesis that he did in a very opulent way in just one dress,” he said.
Among his more obvious nods to the master were looks such as a tiered evening gown in the house’s signature shade of red; a kaleidoscope print tunic with a matching long scarf; a blue polka dot evening dress with a ruched bustier, and couture-grade embroideries in floral and chinoiserie motifs. A bib-front ivory baby-doll dress nodded to Garavani’s storied all-white couture collection from 1968.
Typical Michele flourishes included turbans, marabou stoles, rhinestone-embellished piercings and colored lace tights that cheapened some of the looks. He signaled an ambitious accessories thrust with handbags in various shapes and sizes, including a novelty clutch that looked like a grumpy cat.
Coming on the heels of his predecessor Pierpaolo Piccioli’s graphic, color-blocked silhouettes, the visual overload will require some adjustment. But Michele tapped into an essential quality of Valentino’s vision: unbridled opulence.
Like the founder, Michele is a collector and connoisseur. His grand Palazzo Scapucci in Rome rivals Valentino’s legendary homes, and his A-list circle mirrors the way the founder surrounded himself with the jet-set of his day.
“They were not just clients. That’s a house,” Michele mused.
“What he did, it’s incredible, and all this magnificent stuff was like a celebration of life, and very poetic and powerful. He invented so many things around him, and I’m trying to celebrate, but also to put out that kind of chicness, trying to say, ‘It would be incredible to be like this now,’” he said.
He titled the collection “Pavillon des Folies,” after the architectural follies in 18th- and 19th-century gardens that serve no purpose other than to please the eye. “I think that fashion is the embellishment of the garden that is life,” Michele explained.
