From Beauty to Intimacy: Alessandro Michele’s Radical Take on Valentino's Heritage
The idea of Alessandro Michele staging his show at a public bathroom is crucial to understanding this Fall Winter 25 collection. In Valentino’s press release, there is a discussion about what intimacy really means and how, in reality, it never truly exists beyond one’s self-perception and self-analysis. He argues that intimacy, as a social concept, is never completely pure or revealing of a private truth; it is somehow always staged, performative, and even connected with what happens in one’s exterior environment (which can be called self-adaptation). Alessandro Michele calls this a kind of “meta-theater,” where we mold our own identity through the surface, adapting to roles we set for ourselves by wearing masks. Fashion is the best example of this, and Alessandro Michele intellectually exposing it was BRUTAL.
The choice of a public bathroom represents perhaps the only in-between space that we have as human beings, as it is both private and communal. It’s a place where we experience personal intimacy—the act of undressing, natural functions, and self-reflection in the mirror—and at the same time, it is a place where we encounter others, directly or indirectly. So, it’s also a place of human interaction. It is kind of like a suspended state of our daily lives, in which we get the chance to expose our identities, reconstruct them, and even negotiate them.
Image credit: Vogue Runway
Now, this is where Alessandro Michele excels at connecting this context to Valentino’s heritage and, overall, pun intended, identity. Valentino has always been associated with the idea of refined, almost untouchable beauty, to the point that, as a brand, it represents Roman, aristocratic femininity. To many of us, Valentino is synonymous with impeccable perfection. However, today the idea of beauty has evolved, especially in contemporary fashion (a quick example that the majority loves: Prada), and Michele placing this impeccable heritage in a public bathroom—a meta-theater space of transformation and performance—inevitably creates a radical tension between Valentino’s beauty legacy and this raw vision of intimacy. By creating this tension, Alessandro Michele is not discarding Valentino’s heritage; he’s reframing it and evolving it. It’s no longer about the surface act of dressing; it’s also about undressing—which is why we see so many undone looks and transparencies. It’s not just about impeccable beauty; it’s the process and analysis of what we define for ourselves as beautiful—which is why we saw beauty contrasts in some models wearing heavy makeup and others looking bare-faced or with sunglasses on.
Ultimately, intimacy is no longer something that can only be looked at as an exclusive concept; it becomes a shared, shape-shifting, and even unsettling experience. Every look from this collection expressed (and some hid) an individual identity. Some identities in this collection reflected even a dual identity—there was this tailored look, half pois, half green, that seemed like the model was trying to converge two different styles together. A mirrored “APOLLON SOSINOAQ” t-shirt, again, bringing back the importance of bathroom mirrors for self-reflection, implying that one’s identity can sometimes get distorted. The presence of lingerie pieces on top of garments, like undone bodies, symbolizing that one’s closer-to-skin intimate garments can get exposed. A sparkling dress with a printed cat’s face, depicting that sometimes the elements of our lives can define us.
Alessandro Michele’s Valentino is not a replica of the work he has done at Gucci, which some critics say seems to haunt him. In my view, he is proposing the suggestion that Valentino’s heritage (or any historical house’s heritage, really) can be more than static nostalgia. Heritage can evolve, not just in languages of style, where Alessandro Michele is undoubtedly good at, but mostly in creating cultural dialogues that can be more thought-provoking—like his show was.