September 12, 2025 |
Looking for a fashion link-up with serious va-va voom? You’re in luck.
Valentino Garavani’s long awaited collaboration with Vans is finally hitting the e-shelves. First appearing as part of the Roman house’s Valentino Le Méta Théâtre Des Intimités AW25 show, which saw creative director Alessandro Michele stage his collection inside a cherry red nightclub toilet, the six silhouettes are dropping exclusively on Valentino’s website today.
Reworking the the Vans Authentic low-cut sneaker which was first created back in 1966, the beloved skater shoe now comes adorned in cat motifs and red polkadots. There are checkerboard variations too, in pink, green and crimson, as well as a personal favourite of 10’s stamped with I <3 Vans across the canvas upper.
Dubbed a “creative dialogue between two distinct worlds”, in place of a traditional press release to announce the project, Michele has penned an essay to usher in the collaboration. Read it. Shop it. Ace kicks await.
What happens when the unexpected bursts into our lives? Which sensations arise when what seemed solid dissolves under the blows of forces beyond our control? I tried to build a reflection through images: In trying to answer these questions, I shaped a reflection through images: a dreamlike and surreal fresco where nature suddenly explodes, cracking the neat surface of architectures and technologies that surround us. It’s an unforeseen, even violent, impact that is able to shatter the illusion of stability and to get us back to a more vulnerable and fluid dimension. Which preludes to something new, though.
Water perfectly embodies such uncanny force: a primordial element, an undifferentiated matter that precedes any form, a womb that simultaneously nurtures and dissolves. It’s the topos of the unconscious, that can crush the rational scaffolding of our existence. Water stirs, disorientates, abolishes the borders. It’s the archetype of threat, loss, return to the indistinct but also of rebirth and purification.
In this dream of liberation, water is the element that fractures the Euclidean space, that melts the rigid geometries, transfiguring life into a liquid stage where bodies and clothes move as suspended apparitions. In between intimacy and catastrophe, abandon and resistance. It’s the vertigo of dissolution. But also, the promise of a new beginning. – Alessandro Michele
Shop the collection here. The collection will be available at Valentino boutiques and at both Vans’ London flagship and website on September 19.
Creative Director: Alessandro Michele
Artwork: EDGLRD
Music: Ayan Issin
Models: Bukwop, Shane, Weiyi, Paul
*The campaign video and images were generated using AI, based on original visual material captured during the Valentino Le Méta-Théâtre Des Intimités show. All featured imagery was used with the informed consent of the models here portrayed and of all the talents involved in the execution of the show.*
