It was always going to be a moment. Nearly two years to the day, Alessandro Michele showed his final collection for Gucci in Milan, exiting the Italian house two months later. This afternoon in Paris, the Rome-born designer made his hotly awaited return to the runway with his debut collection for Valentino, a so-called ‘Pavillon des Folies’ which mused on the idea of contemporary beauty. ‘When I say beauty, I am clearly not referring to its universalistic, dogmatic and normative mythologisation,’ said Michele in a letter distributed to guests, which included longtime muses Harry Styles and Elton John. ‘I rather allude to that unique capability to deeply feel and connect with something.’
The show took place in the Dojo de Paris, a judo stadium in the 14th arrondissement on the city’s outer reaches. Transformed beyond recognition, the low-lit space featured a scattering of furniture and lamps covered with dust sheets, while the runway itself had the appearance of a shattered mirror. Of that, Michele – in typically esoteric style – said that ‘we are are fragile creatures, constantly exposed to the sense of limit… we tiptoe on mirrors that shatter under our weight… as we walk, no step comes without the risk of stumbling and falling.’ (Like at Gucci, his collection notes were more like a philosophical musing, here quoting Martin Heidegger’s concept of ‘alètheia’, Théophile Gautier and Michel de Montaigne).
