Just a few days before Alessandro Michele’s inaugural Valentino couture show, the Italian designer welcomed Vogue into one of the house’s five Paris ateliers, where master seamstresses were hard at work putting the finishing touches on his otherworldly designs. “Like every beginning it’s beautiful, it’s exciting, but it’s also stressful,” Michele says of his foray into couture. “The collection is an incredible—for me—exercise of creativity.”
The world of couture was brand new for Michele, who focused on ready-to-wear during his time as creative director at Gucci. “They work by themselves in a very also secret way that is very fascinating,” he says of the members of his atelier and their intricate process for creating pieces of couture by hand. “I feel myself that I’m learning because this is so different than from being just a fashion designer. I’ve never seen something like this in my life.”
When approaching the collection, Michele wanted to consider the world that Mr. Valentino himself inhabited when he helmed the house. The golden age of Italian film served as a major influence—specifically the Cinecittà studio and the works of Luchino Visconti and Frederico Fellini. But while he considers Mr. Valentino’s life experience, Michele views his first couture collection as a conversation between the two of them. “His presence is so big. You must find your way,” Michele says.
It was of the utmost importance for Michele that his own perspective harmonized with the Valentino house codes. “I think that Mr. Valentino means, for many people, a kind of classical beauty,” he says. “My way to approach beauty is more sauvage. I like the wrong things that became beautiful.” The fantastical nature of Michele’s couture—the grandeur, the opulence, even the humor—isn’t lost on him in a particularly dark political moment. “I hope that people are going to leave the room stronger than before.”
Watch here as Alessandro Michele takes Vogue inside the Valentino atelier ahead of his couture spring 2025 collection.
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