PARIS — Alessandro Michele invited us into a “Pavillon des Folies” for his runway debut at Valentino. In the censorious quarters of social media where the rush to judgment knows no speed limit, “folies” will undoubtedly stand for a madness they’ll view as unmitigated Michele redux, the G word prominent in their critiques. And maybe, by mentioning follies, he was perversely courting that reaction. Surely Michele could only toy with such a response from the supremely confident position of knowing that he had achieved something magnificent. Of course, that’s not for him to say, so I’ll say it on his behalf.
His Valentino debut could never match the seismic impact of his first collection for Gucci, because that brand of give-people-what-they-didn’t-know-they-wanted lightning only strikes once. Instead, we were gifted here with a collection that was phrased in Michele’s now-familiar lexicon but re-delivered with such luxurious lightness, effortlessness, exquisite technique and flat-out beauty that it still had the potency of something much missed. I mean, he’s been gone for how long? Clearly, that interregnum of “quiet luxury” was all we needed to remind us that excitement is a critical ingredient in fashion’s mix. It created what Jacopo Venturini, the CEO responsible for bringing Michele to Valentino, described as “the urgent need to return to creating desires and emotions.” And Ale has already proved himself a master at that.
On Sunday afternoon, when guests walked into a cavernous space filled with huge pieces of furniture, art and sculpture — all of it, walls included, draped to ghostly effect in gauzy fabric which blurred the sharp edges — it felt like we were entering a pavilion not of follies but of dreams, with a floor of shattered mirrors to compound the effect. The backdrop was the contents of a life that had been warehoused while its central players were elsewhere, which kind of reflected the feelings Michele expressed to me about moving into Valentino’s “house” when he assumed the role of creative director in April. He claimed he felt his presence everywhere when he was working, never more so than in the brand’s fabulous archives. And all those details he’d absorbed spilled out onto the catwalk in an unabashed torrent of ruffles, bows, brocades, glittering embroidery, gilded lace, polka dots, hats, facial jewellery and a spirit of bohemian excess that tapped into Michele’s own appetites, especially in the orgy of desirable accessories, fringed, embroidered, and even logo-ed with the “V” that is simultaneously one of the most recognisable and least offensive logos in the canon of fashion logograph.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Michele’s stint at Gucci was influenced by his reverence for Valentino, so Sunday’s presentation was actually a relationship finally consummated. And it confirmed his own distinct voice. We can stop talking about anyone else, and settle on this as the new world he has defined for himself. As with all his presentations in the past, there was an arcane manifesto penned in collaboration with his professorial partner Giovanni Attili. Once again, their words offered a free-associative stream that illuminated a creative process unlike anything else in fashion: “…the magnificence of a finely embroidered dress, the long lingering of soul over flesh, the majesty of the void, the pursuit of fireflies seeking love, the scent of wet soil, the touch of organza ruffles, the miracle of libraries, the delicate layers of a watercolour.” Who needs a “review” after that?
