Goodbye Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, the ornate 19th-century hôtel particulier in the 8th Arrondissement of Paris that for years had played rococo host to the Valentino fashion shows.
Hello, to a giant arena on the outskirts of the city that had been transformed by Alessandro Michele, Valentino’s new creative director, into a sort of haunted maison for his debut show. It had a cracked mirror floor and white dust covers thrown over a maze of armoires, standing lamps and settees, as though they were all just waiting for someone new to come in and blow the cobwebs away. Whoosh. Hello to change!
Sort of.
Change for Valentino, unquestionably. The clothes were markedly different from those that had defined Valentino under Pierpaolo Piccioli, the former designer who had brought a deceptively easy elegance and sublime color palette to the house that an opera diva’s red and a carefully placed ruffle had built.
But change for Mr. Michele? Not so much. Instead he brought the signature maximalist expression he had developed in his former job at Gucci to the house, in one sweep transforming what he had described in a preview as its “dusty chic” classicism into a bricolage of decade-hopping fabulousness.
It was as if all the callow kids on the runway had been invited to a 15-course dinner party in a Venetian palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal to celebrate a new film, “Return to Micheleland” — and beforehand been allowed to rummage around in the walk-in closet of an eccentric contessa who also was an obsessive vintage collector. Pick a character, any character, and there was a costume to match.
There were floor-sweeping silver-screen chiffon gowns glinting with silver sequins and little 1960s jolie madame shifts, a line of bows at the throat. Chinoiserie jackets in emerald green and gold as well as some faded denim jeans. Polka dots and paisleys and heavily embroidered 1970s vests (for both men and women). Ruffles and fringes galore. Fluffy marabou stoles, tuxedos and slithery silk dressing gowns. Little lace gloves and lace tights and satin turbans. Sparkling nose and lip rings. Many, many bags — one in the shape of a porcelain cat.
And it wasn’t just the clothes; it was the celebrities on the front row: Harry Styles, Jared Leto, Florence Welch, Elton John, Colman Domingo. All of whom had followed Mr. Michele from his last job to this one.
The result was clarity, of a kind.
This wasn’t Valent-ucci, or Gucci-tino. It was Alessandro Michele. It doesn’t really matter what name is over the door or what initials are on the handbags. As with Hedi Slimane, who remade Saint Laurent in his image and then moved on to do the same at Celine, and as with John Galliano, who recently reverted to type at Maison Margiela, when it comes to Mr. Michele, the brand that matters most is actually his.
Indeed, Mr. Michele said as much in his preview, held in a basement room at the show venue that had been temporarily transformed with multiple Oriental carpets and brocade armchairs. He noted that he expected people to react by saying, “Oh, that’s Gucci. But maybe I think that’s a compliment, because it’s me.” He may have a new job, he went on, “but I think that I don’t have to change that much. I mean, it’s being, in a way, authentic.”
Of course, when he first got the Valentino job he went to the archives and, of course, he spoke to Giancarlo Giammetti, the man who created the brand in the first place with Valentino Garavani, (and who was at the show, cheering Mr. Michele on). Of course, Mr. Michele included nods to brand codes such as Valentino red and ruffles and polka dots. There were more gala looks than usual, and a palpable finesse under all the muchness. And there’s no question Mr. Valentino, who retired in 2008, does love a dinner party.
But those gestures were more like salad dressing, rather than the substance of the meal. The meat — and the pasta and the spumoni — were all Mr. Michele.
On the one hand, fair enough: Gucci itself no longer looks anything like it did under Mr. Michele, who left in 2022 after helping transform that brand into a $10 billion behemoth and was replaced by Sabato De Sarno, who has taken it in an altogether more minimalist direction. There’s space in fashion for Mr. Michele’s mad magpie aesthetic and commitment to decoration for all. He might as well fill it, if no one else will.
As he said, “I think that fashion sometimes seems to be not important, that we don’t really need all these ruffles, you know. But I think that we need.” That’s an affirmation of the human desire to dress up worth hearing.
The collection will indubitably be a hit with his former fans, who never really took to the whole stealth-wealth trend, as well as a generation that has embraced vintage shopping as a lifestyle. Certainly the celeb contingent, offering a standing ovation, was thrilled. Hari Nef looked as though she had been moved to tears.
On the other hand, it would have been fascinating to see Mr. Michele actually be a little tougher with himself, to use his new job to get out of his lavishly appointed comfort zone and experiment. He’s talented enough to do that. Besides, what does it say about brands if they are treated like empty shells that can be reinvented wholesale by every creative director that comes along?
Conventional wisdom for years had it that designers, even famous ones, should be chameleons, sublimating themselves to the service of the brand. Now it seems the brand is at the service of the designer. At least the world-building ones.
That may be the biggest change of all.
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