The front of the dress was entirely black, which Micheles mother considered reliably chic.
Members of his team sat alongside him; his partner, Giovanni Attili, hovered in the background.
The atmosphere was calm.
VERY VALENTINOThe house codes—ornate, opulent, deeply romantic—are there in Michele’s designs, but so, too, is a cool, street-tinged energy that is all his own, and which sings of 2025. Model Luiza Perote in Valentino (here and throughout); Valentino boutiques. Fashion Editor: Tabitha Simmons. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.Vogue, March 2025.
Its a mess, Michele joked, when I first joined him and his team.
We can relax a little, because its almost done.
The models, too, were adorned according to Micheles aesthetic of quirky abundance.
PROFONDO ROSSORed is cardinal in the Valentino universe, but in the view of Alessandro Michele, seen here in his office at the house’s Rome HQ with model Ali Dansky, not everything has to be so bright. “I like this dust around the brand. The dust is precious.”
Is it difficult to stand up straight?
Better to keep walking, Michele told her, sympathetically.
The girl blushed at the comparison, and smiled so much that her lip jewelry fell off.
ANTIQUITY AND MODERNITYA gleaming red bow offsets a gilded confection of ruffles, transparency, and golden embroidery like ancient scrolls worn by model Jiahui Zhang—seen here at Rome’s Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia.
I like this dust around the brand.
The dust is precious.
The quality of the work Valentino Garavani had commanded, Michele told me, had been a revelation.
ANSWERED PRAYERSMichele’s unfettered approach to designing Valentino is being fed by Rome. “It is about God,” he says of his hometown, “but it’s also about decadence and beauty and richness and love affairs.” The result? Otherworldly clothes.
They aresocomplicated, Michele said, of the varying pleats.
Its like an origami.
He had this very specific way of being an engineer.
Was this Valentino Garavani, or Alessandro Michele?
This is him,withme, Michele replied.
I tried to make it a little bit different.
Sometimes I give a shot to replicate the same, because its so fascinating.
But I think that we are both in the same dress.
Also, in a month, they are going to be super fashionable.
Almost two months later, I caught up with Michele at his office in Rome.
Its a kind of creepy conversation with the beautiful ceiling, Michele said.
I like the mess.
The things that look old and demode are, like, the best, Michele says.
He wore a burgundy-colored cashmere sweater and baggy pants made from wide-wale brown corduroy.
Micheles personal charisma is considerable: He is open, engaging, and intellectually curious.
Micheles madcap creativity was, though, married to a solid work ethic.
But theres something quite tidy that you wouldnt expectsomething organized, and precise.
Hesnotall over the place.
I left the company because there was something that was not working anymore, Michele told me.
The growth was on a scale that was no longer human.
Its impossibleits not natural, he said.
The best growth is that you grow slowyou must care about the way you grow.
Its like a body.
The pace was unsustainable for Michele, personally and even creatively.
I was inside a bubble a little bit, he told me.
I like beautiful places, he said, helplessly.
I dont care about cars, or nothing like thisthe only thing I really care about is historical places.
I like the places where people died, people lived.
Valentino is not an empty box.
But Valentino himself was a grand personage about town.
He was familiar, like the pope, Michele told me.
Sometimes the pope was going through in a car, and so was Valentino.
They can also tell you a very different story.
While Valentinos customers were often establishment figures, Valentino himself was far from conventional or conservative, Michele noted.
We think of him as a very classical man, but thats so wrong, he said.
Like Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino only became considered the standard of elegance because of his innovation.
With all the change they built in the culture, theybecamethe culture, Michele said.
So we approach them as classical.
Or when you see a lady with a chic ruffled dress, we say, Shes so Valentino.
But they did many revolutions.
Valentino, he lived his life as a gay man in the 70s.Nobodydid, in the fashion world.
He did it in a way without regrets.
Im always fighting with the boundaries.
He suspected that his critics were motivated by their own sense of being disempowered.
The more free you are, the more people go crazy, he went on.
I think people feel themselves to benotfree.
During his time out from working, Michele sometimes snuck into Attilis lectures at the university in Rome.
In my next life, I want to study all my life, he told me.
Attili encouraged him to take his time after leaving Gucci.
He was the one who said, We can change our life.
you could change your life.
I think its going to change a little bithalf and half, he told me.
I mean, keeping the soul, but making the brand more alive.
But I like this dust around the brand.
The dust is precious.
This is kind of a fake blackdark aubergine.
What appealed to Michele was not just the color, but the symbolism encoded in the painting.
From her waist, a gold chain suspends a locket that contains a portrait of her late husband.
She had this legacy of this big kingdom from him, Michele said.
Its a very interesting way to say, I am a powerful woman.
He had sent an image of the painting to the head of the couture studio.
I said, Lets start from here.
Maybe we will go far from this, but lets start.
ANSWERED PRAYERSMicheles unfettered approach to designing Valentino is being fed by Rome.
Alessandro saw what was beautiful and exciting about how I wanted to dress.
(Paltrow and Chris Martin wore Valentino too.)
Haute couture, he said, is a dress that doesnt answer to the real life.
He went on: you could put into the dress whatever you want, with no boundaries.
Its maybe hard, because I like to have boundaries.
Im always fighting with the boundaries.
Here, there is no one against me.
He went on, Freedom is such a delicate thing, you know.
It means…completely naked.
It means…completely who you are.
Couture is the seed where everything startedits an archaeological rite that we are keeping alive, he told me.
Like a religious thing.
More prosaically, it reminded him of the transitory nature of fashion.
But Im going to be just one.
The flame is the thing that you must keep alive.
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