At Valentino Couture, Alessandro Michele Pays Tribute to a Fashion Giant

The spring 2026 Valentino haute couture show began with the words of Mr. Valentino Garavani, just days after his passing. “You always dream, dream, dream,” he mused. He was looking back to his entry into fashion, to the days when he first fell in love with clothing by watching women on the silver screen as a boy. Today’s offering, Alessandro Michele’s second couture collection for the house, paid homage to Mr. Garavani’s original inspiration in deeply cinematic form. Michele presented a vision of grand characters; guests sat around carousel-like wooden circles looking into narrow windows to take in their looks one by one. The models walked into the center of the circles as Kirsten Dunst, Tyla, and Dakota Johnson looked through the viewing windows. The optical device is more than just an unusual runway set—it’s a reinvention of a forgotten moving-image mechanism from the late 1800s called a Kaiserpanorama. In recreating the long lost cinematic device, Michele sought to slow down our gaze and give each look a solitary, delicate moment of concentration. In an age of overexposure and constant swiping, contemplation and total focus is a rarity, one that takes on all the more meaning in the weeks following Mr. Garavani’s departure.

Once we peer through the windows, Michele’s sirens, in all their theatricality, come into view. In typical Michele fashion, the characters were full of all the lush drama we’ve come to associate with the dreamlike world-builder. The cast included: a statuesque model in a plunging red gown, Cher in Bob Mackie meets Dynasty in 2026; angelic figures in handbeaded numbers and ornate crowns; Elizabethan starlets with collars taking on wild proportions or appearing in gold jewelry form. A deep violet gown with shoulder pads and a statement choker channeling the ’80s by way of a Medieval moment sat alongside a fairytale-pink organza gown full of handsewn sparkles. A salmon silk two-piece skirt suit had a shell-like construction with a spectacular headpiece straight out of 1940s Hollywood. Every look was a spectacle meant for worship. These are not garments for shy women.

Michele has always been a master of showmanship and emotion, and today’s couture offering was no different. We’ll see this fashion on red carpets and on the bodies of particularly bold and glamorous private clients. The gowns were stitched, embroidered and draped before Mr. Garavani’s passing; still, the show was a tender tribute. “For me, Mr. Valentino has been a mythological figure,” wrote Michele, referring to the legendary designer’s attention to body and the form. “Being called to guard this legacy, if only for a time, summons me.”