Alessandro Michele - Designer, Creative Director of Valentino

[TomBlanksFullFatMiuMiu]

They look homeless

 

[tourbillions]

homeless chic minus the chic

 

[Lola701]

I don’t see nothing wrong with Alessandro’s style. I mean, he is character so in a way it is very cohesive.
But I must say that I prefer his partner’s outfit.

I am shocked by the hate towards Alessandro on this forum. I have contrasting thoughts about the couture but is comical how the same people (from the industry too) who praised Galliano’s artisanal costume feast are now shocked by how costumy and impractical Alessandro’couture is.

My simple answer would be that essentially, Valentino is a very different brand. A lot of hate towards Alessandro’s work is directed to that fact. Yes he was able to mold Gucci to whatever he wanted overtime. But you can’t turn the epitome of Italian Glamour into a costume fest in one season.

Galliano at least made the effort to contain himself before going full on Galliano. And a lot of people criticized him for not respecting the aesthetic of the house he was in.

 

[Alquimista]

Denjo, nobody takes Galliano seriously as a fashion designer. As a clothing designer yes but fashion... With Michele, people expect a real proposition and many were disappointed because the couture show was very costumey.

 

[Nimsay]

I was at Bloomingdale's in Aventura and the picked up Valentino Uomo shoes for this season and have bought many styles... They carried Gucci previously.

 

[Xone]

This dress looks great on Bianca Balti yesterday at San Remo festival

 

[carla56]

This dress looks great on Bianca Balti yesterday at San Remo festival

I also loved the looks on Damiano ❤️ the first blazer had amazing shoulders

 

[Xone]

I also loved the looks on Damiano ❤️ the first blazer had amazing shoulders

i loved both looks on him...you see AM but in a less costumey way...
sadly he don't bring that to his runways or presentations...
shame...

 

[FashionPower]

This dress looks great on Bianca Balti yesterday at San Remo festival

Loved the dress on Bianca, however it looks like a leftover from a PPP collection...bright color and feathers are so PPP coded, the style of the dress also gave me huge PPP vibes. It reminded me a lot of Naomi's MET 2019 Valentino look...

I agree with you anyways, this "toned down" and more bourgeois version of Lallo over the top dusty maximalism is more suited for Valentino.

 

[carla56]

Loved the dress on Bianca, however it looks like a leftover from a PPP collection...bright color and feathers are so PPP coded, the style of the dress also gave me huge PPP vibes. It reminded me a lot of Naomi's MET 2019 Valentino look...
View attachment 1349416
I agree with you anyways, this "toned down" and more bourgeois version of Lallo over the top dusty maximalism is more suited for Valentino.

actually I also saw similarities with this Gucci that Lupita wore in 2015, one of Alessandro Michele's first red carpets... the georgette, the bold but not sexy neckline, the jewel details...

 

[Nimsay]

Right that was all stunning RC wear.

Guys … we are really that thrown off by removable crinoline.

 

[Cocteau Stone]

Well I’m also just here admiring Bianca in all her beauty amidst all her cancer treatments and chemo. Just so admirable and she looks gorgeous 💖

 

[blueorchid]

Vogue España March 2025 (Reprint: US Vogue March 2025)
"De Roma al cielo"
Photographer: Annie Leibovitz
Fashion Editor: Tabitha Simmons
Hair: Shiori Takahashi
Makeup: Yadim
Featuring: Alessandro Michele
Models: Ali Dansky, Jiahui Zhang, Luiza Perote







Vogue España Digital Edition

 

[Creative]

He’s unbearable. SO PRETENTIOUS!

 

[FashionPower]

Brief extract from his interview to italian newspaper:

**Second show for Alessandro Michele in Paris with ready-to-wear.** He receives us in Rome, at Palazzo Mignanelli, on the eve of the show, in the office that once belonged to Mr. Valentino. The furniture arrangement has changed, but the pieces remain the same. If it weren’t for the enormous desk where he never sits.

Above, the designer has meticulously reassembled, they assure, the puzzle of his fetishes—dozens and dozens of them: a crochet hat made by a friend, the laurel wreath he wore at the Met, a souvenir from Canada, a ribbon, a book, a pair of earrings, a flower. "My container. I can’t do it any other way. They were arranged like this at Gucci too… if I move them, what do I do?" And already the story begins, weaving between past and present.

**Does Alessandro Michele have vices?**

"A billion vices. I have the vice of wanting to feel good, of wanting to have fun, of beautiful things, the vice of wanting […] The canonical ones, I’ve never had: I’ve never smoked, I’ve never done drugs. It’s an attempt to preserve myself because I like to be present in my mind, and if I want to have fun, I need to be there. Ah, I also have the vice of working, a lot."

**You’re reserved, but on your Instagram profile, during important moments, you share your story.**

For example, when your lifelong friend and colleague Davide Renne passed away.

"I miss him. I know I can’t see him again. But I wish I could. It’s like a Dantean circle because he comes to mind, but he’s not here, and I don’t know where he is. We didn’t have time to say goodbye. Then you get used to it. But I still talk to him […] Davide’s death was the most negative thing in my life, but I don’t hold onto it. That is, I think it’s something fleeting, but I’m not convinced. I still wonder what it means to disappear from life. When I was little, I lost my aunt, who was like a second mother to me. So maybe I don’t even want to deal with it, or maybe, I don’t know, I’ve found my own way."

**When you left Gucci, on your social media profile, you wrote words like: perspectives, different, journey, home, family.**

"It’s all beauty […] Like in a relationship, you say it will last a lifetime, but then it ends. And for me, it was my life, but precisely for that reason, I can’t look at it with resentment. […]"

**The fashion world felt orphaned after that announcement.**

"I suffered a lot, but I was prepared, and I faced the change. Maybe others expected it less, but then they understood. Like in a family when you no longer recognize each other, I think of a father who is no longer your reference point and doesn’t let you be who you are, and you have to emancipate yourself. Gucci was like a family: and it was a journey that lasted 8 years, not 7 as everyone writes, and that’s the only thing that makes me angry (he laughs). As a studious young man, I say: how is it that I’ve almost finished all the exams of the last year, and they take everything away after all I’ve done?"

**And when you left, Gucci was still growing, though not like in the beginning.**

"18%, which today…"

From that moment on, something happened in the entire system.

"We invented the turbo: the only brand, I believe, that in the last three decades went from 3 billion to 10 in 8 years. Then I left… And then it was a decline, but I’m rooting for them to rise again: it was a bit like my home, an extraordinary place with karma inside, and it left a great affection. Yes, I’m really rooting for a rebirth bigger than the one that happened with me and with Tom Ford. […]"

**Do you think greed played a role?**

"I don’t think it’s individual greed, in the sense that we live in a world where we’re all forced, and I include myself. When I worked there, Gucci was a ten-headed monster, but I think it’s a planetary problem: humans are the animals that treat each other the worst, we’re the only ones who want to condemn our own species to death. Although I feel that now in fashion there’s a growing awareness of where we are, of what’s happening, and that the doped-up world of the economy has found a kind of healthy endpoint."

**Why Valentino?**

"It seemed like a very different challenge. Because it’s a brand that comes from couture, something completely new. Then there was Jacopo (Venturini, the CEO), we’ve always liked each other. A pole of attraction. Lastly, while I was deciding whether to do this or that, Kering bought 30%, and there was Francesca (Bellettini) and François-Henri (Pinault), so I said, 'Maybe this is exactly where I need to go.' I was lucky: after all that mess, just three days later, I received offers, even though I had changed my phone number. I had done that miracle, but I had never realized it."

**Before you, at Valentino, there was Pierpaolo Piccioli...**

"I know. The work he and Maria Grazia Chiuri did at Valentino was extraordinary. But you’ll rarely hear me talk about someone I’ve never met, I’m very authentic."

**Your partner, Giovanni Attili, a professor at Sapienza, what does he think of your world?**

"Vanni is completely immersed. We work together, but then he has his own world. If he’s in the studio, I’m always attentive. He can interrupt me. But I don’t interrupt him. He’s a hyper person, and I like that because I always want to feel like I have to earn everything."

**Is it true that Harry Styles moved to Rome for you?**

"Harry is part of our family. He’s like a younger brother. It’s strange how life makes you meet people whose life path you change, and they change yours. Now I even live with paparazzi under my house, I even greet some of them. I’m very conscious that I need to be careful. I don’t use a car, I like to walk, but they manage to take some photos of me: I always look terrible, with my hat pulled down and a serious face, but it’s fine, I won’t change: my life was and is this. Now that I’ve found my balance, I’m fine with it."

 

[Frederic01]

There's an article on the Financial Times about Alessandro and Valentino if anyone happens to have access! : )

Alessandro Michele: ‘Valentino doesn’t have the attitude to be big’...

FINANCIAL TIMES

 

[FashioNarrating]

Valentino doesn't have the attitude to be big?? Giancarlo Giammetti is on the phone...

 

[LadyJunon]

@Frederic01

Alessandro Michele: ‘Valentino doesn’t have the attitude to be big’
The former creative director of Gucci on taking the reins of Valentino Garavani’s atelier — and why turning the house into another fashion giant would be a disaster

Alexander Fury
Published MAR 8 2025

“Valentino is a place that has a very specific soul,” muses its designer, Alessandro Michele. “Not a soul of a brand, but a maison de couture, an atelier, a home.” Michele has made himself at home at Valentino since he took up the reins of the Roman couture house in March of last year.

He also looks at home — on our Zoom call, Michele fits perfectly into the cognac-coloured confines of his office in Valentino’s late Renaissance headquarters at the Palazzo Gabrielli-Mignanelli. With coffered ceiling and vast windows, it used to belong to the brand’s founder, the permanently tanned and besuited Valentino Garavani, when it was filled with flowers and an omnipresent cortege of pug dogs. By contrast, with his flowing hair and beatific smile, the 52-year old Michele looks like an Italian nobleman who could have been painted there back in the 16th century.

A palazzo is very in keeping with Valentino, the fashion house founded in 1959 by Garavani and his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. They also have a château outside of Paris, a Swiss ski chalet, a London apartment and a yacht — indeed, they live as large as Valentino’s clients, which have included crowned heads from across Europe and the Middle East, Italian aristocracy and Elizabeth Taylor.

The eccentricities of their fabulous lifestyle — and the beauty of Valentino’s clothes — were charted in the 2008 documentary The Last Emperor, marking the retirement of Mr Valentino. After that, the house was stewarded by its former accessories designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, as co-creative directors, then by Piccioli alone, who had worked with Valentino since 1999. Michele is the first outsider allowed through the castle gate.

Michele is, most famously, the designer who remade Gucci — and its fortunes — which increased from €3.9bn to €9.7bn between 2015 to 2021 alongside CEO Marco Bizzarri. Born in Rome, Michele studied at the city’s Accademia di Costume e di Moda, where he designed both fashion and costume. He worked at Rome’s other big fashion house, Fendi, before he joined Gucci in Milan in 2002. He spent 13 years alongside designers Tom Ford and Frida Giannini before he became creative director in January 2015.

At Gucci, he worked with a 360-degree vision. Rather than employing a stylist to work on his shows, for example, he always devised each look with his team. “I give all of myself to this job,” Michele says. He also oversaw whimsical advertising campaigns (one was staged as a Busby Berkeley musical) and pop cultural collaborations with celebrities, including Harry Styles and also Elton John, for whom Michele designed costumes for his 2018-23 final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road. Now a close friend, Elton has defected from Gucci and sat front row at both of Michele’s Valentino shows.

I ask Michele when he first became aware of the brand. “There are two memories. One is the building, the square, the mythology of Mr Valentino,” he says. “The other memory is very pop. McDonald’s was opening the first fast food in town, and in Italy. And was in Piazza di Spagna.” That’s the square where Valentino’s headquarters are located and this was in 1986, when Michele was 13. “Someone told me, ‘Look on the corner there is Valentino!’ With two dogs and Giammetti . . . Maybe they were just curious to see what was happening?” He smiles. “I saw Mr Valentino in person, and I thought it was incredible. It was like an epiphany of . . . like a God.”

Like cinema, fashion loves a sequel. The assumption is that Valentino’s Qatari owners, Mayhoola, want Michele to work his magic and “do a Gucci” at Valentino, similarly exploding the brand’s turnover which, as of 2023 stands at €1.35bn. That would be a natural aim for CEO Jacopo Venturini, who was executive vice-president of merchandising at Gucci during Michele‘s tenure (he moved to Valentino in 2020). Michele says it isn’t his goal. “I think that Valentino doesn’t have the vocation, the attitude to be big,” he says. “If you want to do this brand big as Gucci, it’s going to be a disaster. So this is a little brand that you can make brighter as it was, and it is, and you can do a great job. But keeping it the right size.”

How does Michele intend to do that? First, by exploring what Valentino already represents in the collective consciousness. Some critics see Michele’s vintage-inspired styles for the house — eclectic, maximalist, with unusual and arcane accessories (his first collection featured bags in the shape of porcelain kittens) — as incompatible with the elegance at the heart of Valentino.

But Michele’s first Valentino collections — two pre-collections, one ready-to-wear show and an haute couture extravaganza in January (where Giammetti was front row and beaming in a rousing endorsement) — were embedded with references to the Valentino archive. Those Valentino codes and signifiers included the well-known — ruffles, bows, the colour red — as well as the more obscure. The opening look of Michele’s January couture show was a vast crinoline in Commedia dell’arte harlequin checks, inspired by a Valentino gown from 1992, as internet fashion sleuths discovered after the show.

Indeed, there have been many other examples surfacing online to show how close Michele’s work is or isn’t to the Valentino original. “They are doing thousands of TikTok of Valentino — old dress, new dress,” says Michele. He sounds delighted. “It’s like playing a game, now the people are trying to find the story of Mr Valentino.” That kind of engagement is gold for a brand.

Michele’s archival riffing will be further on display on Sunday’s autumn/winter 2025 ready-to-wear show in Paris. “Especially in this collection, I’m trying to touch things and to manipulate things that for many people, they completely forgot,” says Michele. “Because they think that the golden age of Valentino is just the beginning of the Seventies. But Valentino gave his idea of the Eighties in such an incredible way. And always very romantic. And so I’m trying to make my mash up, and working.”

For Michele, Valentino’s present is about its past and its future. “There is a big legacy, a soul that you must protect,” Michele says. “And you have also to open a different conversation, to make the brand relevant and in conversation with the young generation, with the customers. And make the brand translate this beauty that we . . . I don’t want to say that we take for granted, but it’s something that we know, everybody knows. When you say Valentino, they think about that incredible, unbelievable level of ‘making of’.”

He’s speaking of craftsmanship — and he’s right. Valentino is lauded for the qualities of its manufacturing for ready-to-wear, and commands high prices. The ateliers that create its haute couture are only equalled by Dior and Chanel. “But it sometimes seems like that the brand is in a bubble,” Michele continues. “It’s interesting to be in that position, because there are so many fans of the brand. But I’m trying also to make that beauty relevant now.”

Financial Times

 

[Alquimista]

He's coming extra conceptual.
Tfs is gonna have a field day.

 

[Lola701]

^^
Conceptual?
For someone who said that for him the golden age of Valentino is the beginning on the 70’s?
It will be more of the same costume party with just over-accessorized archives looks.