Alessandro Michele picks nostalgia for Valentino

From what can be gathered from the interviews given shortly before and immediately after Valentino's SS25 show, which marked the return of Alessandro Michele to fashion, the Roman creative director had already anticipated the comments the whole world would make about his new debut. Michele already knew he would be criticized for bringing his own dusty chic, eccentric, archival vibe into what, until a few months ago, had been the minimal and sublimated realm of Pierpaolo Piccioli. But the truth is that Michele performed the task he was hired for, which was to bring his own individual taste to the brand and apply his method. This method heavily involved Valentino's archives: if Gucci is a brand always open to reinvention, Valentino has a much more detailed history, a decades-long succession of Haute Couture shows ranging from the 1960s to 2007, which may have been forgotten over the years, replaced by almost a decade of work done by Piccioli. In other words, yesterday's show wasn't Alessandro Michele redoing Gucci or redoing himself, but a nearly archaeological work of curating and sampling from the "historic" Valentino that new generations have never experienced: from the late 1960s to the first half of the '90s, numerous elements from the brand's archives were taken and recomposed, reminding us that Valentino's past work was not tied to a single aesthetic or reducible to one style, but was something so varied, eclectic, and multifaceted that it challenges the very notion of "authorship" we have today.

If the show we saw yesterday undoubtedly bears Michele's taste and eye, and the individual outfits don't diverge from the spirit of a brand that for years has been solely tied to the creativity of its founder, without being too attached to a fixed style as we now demand from our designers, it is also true that the very type of kitsch Michele works with seems to have changed. Comparing his old Gucci collections with this one, in fact, it is possible to notice a significant reduction in logoed pieces, text, streetwear hybrids, and the unrestrained and abstruse approach of the past: while still very much his, the collection was undeniably more focused and disciplined than some of his other collections where anything could happen, even to the point of randomness and incoherence. In this sense, at Valentino yesterday there was a lot going on, but not too much going on. The only real oddity was the scarves used as belts and ties – other than that, we stayed far from certain heights of gauche seen in the past.

Nonetheless, can we really say that yesterday's show killed quiet luxury? If a seismic shift in the industry was expected, we'll have to wait a bit longer. We remembered Michele's vibe so well, front row guests included, with such clear contours, that it didn't feel like two years had passed in his absence – a type of total familiarity that eliminated any element of surprise: business as usual, as they say in movies. For this reason, perhaps the collection was great for establishing the new aesthetic but represented a missed opportunity to give us something new – not different from what Michele knows how to do and has done in the past, but simply new. It’s clear that creating something new is not easy: first, because the market is now ultra-saturated, so there’s really no way to reinvent the wheel, so to speak; second, because, based on Michele's past collections, his attempts to create something “new” often result in chimeric extravagances like men's blazers with additional armholes at the sides; dresses that mix latex, chiffon, and lace in harsh chromatic contrasts; the infamous anal plugs worn as necklaces; tiger-striped pink leggings and rhinestone bodysuits – eccentricities reminiscent of fashion students, barely justified by the classic ars gratia artis.

It is perhaps a good thing that, aside from a cat-shaped clutch, Michele did not stray too far from the path, merely adding some sequin-covered septums (a nod to Riccardo Tisci?) to a few looks or transforming a wool cap into a sort of metallic headpiece that obscured the model's face. After all, the designer’s talent shines most in the pastiche of vintage, ancient, and esoteric, in the aura of mystery and magic that remains in the old-fashioned without stumbling into the bizarre. On this level, the balance was maintained yesterday. All things considered, though, given that he has archives spanning a thousand styles and numerous decades to draw inspiration from, it would be more interesting if Michele proposed truly thematic collections, which have a core or narrative heart even as they branch out into new and unexpected directions but remain cohesive within a frame of reference, a gravitational center. Yesterday's show, in short, was a bath of nostalgia, nor was anything else expected - but when will this nostalgia finally be channeled and used to dialogue and highlight any aspect of reality or even just an accomplished and sincere narrative? The word “collection” refers to a whole set of different objects lumped together and collected according to a criterion: without a reason why the different references are found together, we are closer to an “accumulation” of them than to an actual collection. When will we see an accomplished figure emerge in Michele's kaleidoscope of eras and references?