Valentino FW 2025
Alessandro Michele’s Fall 2025 ready-to-wear collection for Valentino was presented in a venue that resembled a surreal red public bathroom, with saturated tile, fluorescent lighting, and steel fixtures. Provocative and jarring, it set the stage for a show that broke from the brand’s storied past of jet-set grace and stepped into a darker, more confrontational arena. This was not about nostalgia; this was about disarming beauty with an edge.
And what an edge it was. Michele’s second collection for the house carved out new ground—visibly and deliberately. Gone were the dusty layers of bohemia from his Gucci years, replaced with a silhouette defined by bold structure and an almost austere control. Shoulders were sharp, pants trailed with undone hems, and even the styling—hair pulled back under knit headbands and balaclavas—rejected glamor in favor of severity. The elegance here was unrelenting, almost intimidating in its poise.
This sculptural tension extended into the eveningwear, where Michele truly flexed. A standout: a tiered gold gown of pleated metallic fabric, cut in structured ruffles that cascaded like armor made of light. Worn in the blood-red bathroom under stark lighting, the dress glowed like a relic of old-world couture, reimagined as a weapon. Cinched at the waist with a velvet bow, it combined a sense of regal ceremony with a precise, almost mechanical silhouette. It was daring. It was divine.
Even in more colorful moments—a long dress printed with a cat’s face, a nod to last season’s porcelain kitty bag—Michele didn’t waver from his eccentricity. If anything, he’s doubling down on the idea that fashion should reflect our full selves: sharp, strange, and sometimes contradictory. The unsnapped bodysuits worn over lacy tights exemplified this vulnerability-meets-control dynamic. These weren’t clothes for decoration—they were clothes for declaration.
When Michele turned toward fantasy, as with a silk georgette gown in acid and pastel lace embellished with crystals and bows, he did so with restraint. The detailing was ornate, but never frivolous. Even the bows—those perennial traps of nostalgia—felt refreshed, reframed in a palette and form that buzzed with tension. A black dress with a plunging neckline and thigh-high slit stood as a counterpoint—minimal, but with menace.
Michele is not simply remixing the Valentino legacy; he’s rewriting its grammar. Gone is the language of polite luxury, of high society’s quiet codes. In its place, a vocabulary of boldness, strangeness, and tension. Where Valentino Garavani once offered women a fantasy of perfection, Michele proposes a reality of contradictions—just as beautiful, but more dangerous.
The red-tiled bathroom, once a symbol of privacy or shame, became a stage for visibility. For women sculpted in molten gold and wrapped in crystal lace. For a new Valentino woman: severe, eccentric, unmissable.
There’s no comfort here—only the thrill of being thrown off balance. Valentino.
