Alessandro Michele designs for the dancefloor at Valentino’s Paris present | Paris trend week

Alessandro Michele is the Italian designer who, throughout his seven yr tenure as artistic director at Gucci, made maximalism a meal ticket for the model.

His problem now could be to carry the identical sizzling sauce to Valentino. He’s been within the high artistic job for simply 30 months however time strikes quick in trend and he’s already rolled out 10 collections and 4 catwalk reveals. At Paris fashion week on Sunday afternoon, he ticked off present quantity 5.

A collection of satin bustier tops paired with knee-length skirts opened the present. Some skirts had been virtually see-through in gauzy materials. Some got here smothered in glimmering beads or trimmed with feathers or each.

The present might have been held on the Sainte-Geneviève library however these had been garments made for the dancefloor. The debauched partying temper dominated menswear too, with creased trousers and silky boxers peaking out above their waistbands and mis-buttoned double-breasted blazers. Michele mentioned he preferred enjoying with “the concept of glamour within the fallacious approach”.

The response to Michele at Valentino has been blended. In a turbulent luxurious market, its proceeds declined 15% to €1.12bn in 2025. Michele’s opulent outlook has been barely out of step with trend’s vanilla period. However, the reign of quiet luxurious is quietly coming to a detailed; “character dressing” is on the rise and Michele is poised within the wings.

Speaking after the present, Michele described “sensuality as a part of the vocabulary of the model”. This time round he had pared again his signature voluminous silhouettes, as a substitute specializing in exposing pores and skin.

The model’s founder Valentino Garavani famously hated the casualisation of trend, recoiling at flip-flops and shorts, however Michele likes to toy with codes. In this case, there have been deep V-cut cotton vest tops whereas some fashions wore brightly colored baseball caps emblazoned with “Villain Teen”. Michele, who wore one in inexperienced, mentioned he loved the best way it sounded a bit like “Villain-Teen-O”. But he additionally preferred that in Italian it’s “a classy method to say you’re a bit exterior of the principles”, including: “Where every part is ideal, it’s a chic method to make one thing fallacious.”

Valentino is managed by Mayhoola, which owns 70% of the corporate, whereas the French luxurious group Kering holds the remaining 30% and has choices to extend its stake to 100% earlier than the tip of the last decade.

The model’s candy spot – and key to Michele’s turnaround technique – is crimson carpet dressing. The assortment’s longer size ruffle and bow-adorned attire had Hollywood written throughout them.

In a international stage the place more and more red-carpet appears to be like are captured in 360 levels and rapidly dissected on the web, Michele is aware of a costume with a bit of additional oomph counts. A closing sizzling pink costume featured a large pleated prepare and large black bow that bounced down the catwalk, grazing the viewers’s knees.