January 30, 2025 |
Alessandro Michele’s debut couture collection for Valentino was nothing short of a game changer. What would the man with most lavish imagination in fashion do with its highest art form? He made it roar.
Hand-made by teams of artisans, unique to the wearer, and something you need feudal levels of wealth to indulge in, haute couture is, by its very nature an extreme. Alessandro Michele leaned in to couture’s exceptionalism, taking it so far beyond rich lady dressing, that it was mind-boggling to watch. Apt then that the collection’s name, Vertigineux translates as dizzying – the perfect description for this soaring fashion spectacle marked by an unmistakable energy, and an unrestrained desire to create.
Presented in a pitch black space inside the historic Paris Bourse, the audience climbed into nosebleed steep stadium seats. Guests with claustrophobia and light sensitivity were warned of potential triggers. This wasn’t business as couture normal. Alessandro was here to shake things up and stamp his mark on the genre.
The first model emerged in a harlequin dress with a huge hooped skirt that took 1,300 hours to make. Another, with her face covered by a Mexican wrestling mask (actually inspired by the Countess Castiglioni, a 19th century fashion plate who covered her face with masks to hide ageing) wore a vast pleated hooped gown made with 650m of fabric. “This is surreal. It’s an augmented reality. Is that possible?” commented the designer after the show, as if even he couldn’t quite believe what he had created. He treated each look as a sculpture made with lavish embroideries sumptuous silks, enormous panniered ball gowns and extravagant flounces. Valentino’s 1980s archives provided a touchstone for the scale and drama of the silhouettes, but Michele had pushed couture into a different plane.
Everything was lavished with craft and layers and layers of references. Michele went deep. Art movements, eras, philosophers moods, could be detected in a look, as well as personalities as diverse as Queen Victoria, Emily Dickinson, Hanging Rock, Marilyn Shakespeare, Frederick Worth, Isadora Duncan, Jean Harlow Marie Antoinette and his own mother were amongst the huge list of notables to inspire each look. They were listed in a 200 page show programme and projected onto the catwalk behind each look.
Reflecting on his designs Michele said, “They are masterpieces,” which would sound overblown if it were not true. They are certainly significant landmarks – destined for museums and collectors looking for a piece of fashion history.
A first-time couturier, Michele described the atelier as “like a gym a place where you can learn and train,” His personal trainers? Valentino’s couture seamstresses who can make any dream a reality. “I had to introduce myself to them,” he said of the power dynamic.
In awe of the skills of the atelier he was almost afraid to touch the clothes. “I have to bow before these pieces they have a supernatural power they do not come form the factory,” he said.
Reflecting on his couture immersion, he said time was the main difference between couture and ready to wear because Couture teams spend weeks perfecting one look. “In RTW it’s different I have a schedule it’s like racing in a rally I would like to stop and pick up flowers but I cannot stop.”
The possibilities of couture are intimidating he admitted. “It’s like an ocean. When you work you know you simply have to imagine. It’s an incredible creative exercise but its like putting an ocean into a glass. You think what am I going to put into the glass?”
Many of the models were older women, with Michele arguing that things become more beautiful and interesting with age. “Time provides grace and multiplies beauty. I like mature people and there’s a connection between beauty and time. There is a spell there.”
After the show, Michele said he was not good at sewing but, “I can tell a story and say something that makes fashion meaningful. I work with passion.” He brought a new intense creative energy to couture and it’s richer for it.
Photography courtesy of Valentino.
