Alessandro Michele might not have planned for the Eternal City to be cloaked in anthracite clouds nor a ten-hour downpour when the invitations went out for his big homecoming show in Rome for Valentino. But few other designers’ outputs would actually be enhanced by such a moody meteorological intervention.
‘I think that the dark made inside even more kind of poetic and spectacular,’ he shared conspiratorially backstage. ‘The outside was so dark, which is very unexpected in Rome, but it was like the ceilings inside.’
Valentino returns to its roots in Rome
On Thursday evening, the Valentino creative designer pulled the fashion week train into the station, closing the A/W 2026 collections with a show on a spectacular scale staged at the storied Palazzo Barberini. Mere puddle hops from the original Valentino HQ on Piazza Mignanelli, the location was a poignant homage to the brand’s founder, Valentino Garavani, who died in January aged 93 and an ode to the archive he created there.
Home to several exquisitely moody frescoes by Passeri, Camassei and Caravaggio, Michele said he chose the venue for its architectural tension, the result of a heated rivalry between Baroque architects Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who each designed parts of the Baroque palace – including its two dramatic staircases.
‘They really represent the beauty of chaos,’ he said. ‘This is almost my job, you know, to make and to create the tension and the dialogue between different things.’
They were themes mirrored in the collection that saw Michele mine the 1980s archive – a period when Garavani was prolific but has seldom been revisited since, said the designer – before massaging its codes into clothes that were empowering in a subtler way.
Shoulders were structured yet softened with cascading silk sleeves for evening or slightly off-centre with a faded floral print for day. Tailoring was jaunty, by way of asymmetric sequinned lapels and belted bejewelled wool coats. Mini dresses were cinched with cummerbunds and worn with the return of the Rockstud pump, and suits were buttoned up with brooches. Meanwhile trousers were pin-tucked, belted and worn with a box-fresh New Balance.
‘It's about Valentino. It's about beauty. It's about the tension between me and the conversation between me and the brand, and kind of a beauty that I'm trying to translate in a very specific, poetical way,’ said Michele.
Case in point, the finale: a backless jewelled jersey dress (100 per cent Michele) in Valentino Red (100 per cent Valentino). ‘I'm trying to always keep a red dress. It means life and richness, it's an intense colour, you know, and the colour is like the code of the brand. It's like the GG when I was in Gucci.’
Rome seems to bring out the best in Michele. Himself a son of the city, few know better than a native how to capture its sartorial idiosyncrasies. It’s a bit high-net-worth heirloom, a bit borrowed-from-your-bestie and wholly Michele's MO. He did it at Gucci during his era-defining tenure that transformed the Milanese house’s fortunes, and he’s astutely developing on it here at a time when Gen-Z shoppers are returning to the new-wave vintage look that Michele has owned for over a decade.
The front-row guests – including Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyla, Coleman Domingo and after-party performer Lily Allen – represented its cross-generational appeal, too.
‘I love everything about Valentino, especially Alessandro Michele's Valentino because I feel masculine, sexy, and also, like, a bit of a flâneur, you know what I mean?’ Valentino ambassador Domingo tole Wallpaper*.
‘It really makes you feel like you're in a fantasy. You're in a dream. And I think it's supposed to be in this world where things are hard and tough,’ he continued. ‘It’s nice to lean into that, with an art form such as fashion. It feels like, again, we're in a place where we were being lifted up to the heavens, to something bigger than ourselves. And we can do that with art, and we can do that with poetry and science. I think it's so pointed for us to be in a place like this today.’
