Alessandro Michele scored points against AI slop with his ode to the human touch.
Guests at Valentino’s spring 2027 show, held under the iron arches of the Sainte-Geneviève Library in the Latin Quarter, were asked to bring a book for donation.
Alexander Skarsgård chose a collection of Icelandic sagas that is a classic of Scandinavian literature. “It’s basically the ‘Iliad’ of the Norse culture,” he explained. Thai singer and actor Jeff Satur selected a manual for manifesting.
Creative director Alessandro Michele said he was inspired by the term “Antilibrary,” coined by the late Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco to designate a collection of unread books. Michele has scores, and compared them to all the clothes sitting idle in his wardrobe.
“There is something that I like in the idea of having in my closet that beautiful piece that I’m probably never going to wear,” he said in a preview.
It felt like a curious premise for a fashion show. After all, isn’t the hope that these clothes will be lived in?
Admittedly, it takes a certain type of individual to inhabit Michele’s maximalist designs. Here, the closest he got to everyday clothes was double-pleated jeans, plaid shirts and baseball caps that read “Villain Teen.”
The Roman designer is wedded to a nostalgic interpretation of Valentino that oscillates between statement ballgowns, like a fuchsia satin column with a huge pleated pink rosette train, and an off-kilter take on bourgeois daywear.
Think ‘80s power blazers, but worn with lace cycling shorts, and satin bustiers in jewel tones that were mismatched with tasseled and embroidered skirts.
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