There is clothing, and then there is couture, and success in ready-to-wear hardly correlates to success with the latter. But if there was anyone who could be trusted to do it justice—and on their first go, no less—it is Alessandro Michele, who last night presented his debut Haute Couture collection for Valentino. Held in the cavernous interiors of the old Paris Stock Exchange, the setting for the House’s Spring/Summer 2025 show was as dramatic as the collection itself. Seats loomed high as guests waited with masked eagerness before Prokofiev’s foreboding ‘Dance of the Knights’ boomed through the space.

Emerging from the darkness, a model made her way across a stage flashing with lights and LED signage that spouted words that described the designer’s inspiration. Even with so much going on, an oversized crinolined ballgown in a harlequin print compelled the eye, with each diamond painstakingly crafted from gathered tulle. The staggering feat of handwork was 1300 hours in the making and just the first of 48 looks that made up a dizzying parade of sartorial excess. With a heady trip through the ages, Michele realises a world where his eclecticism is only bolstered by Valentino Garavani’s opulence.

Titled “Vertigineux: a poetics of the list,” the collection’s exhaustive 100-page shownotes read like a literary thesis. At its core, Michele proposed each of the looks as an endless catalogue of references: the 16th-century commedia dell’arte actor Francesco Andreini, the electric hues of a Mandarin fish, the ornate geometry of a checkerboard. His couture debut was a magpie’s delight that merged eras, techniques, and textures and bound them together with a surrealist beauty realised through the ornate craftsmanship of Valentino’s Roman ateliers.

As the show unfolded, enormous peacock feathers sprouted from shoulders, sequin embellishments cascaded like molten silver, and frothy waterfalls of tulle enveloped models in clouds of extravagance. Panniers and Tudor ruffs reigned supreme while a continued commitment to Victoriana took centre stage. To attempt to dissect each look in forensic detail would be an exercise in futility, as Michele’s joyfully uninhibited style doesn’t require more than our instinctual senses.

But beyond the sheer visual spectacle, Michele wove a deeply personal narrative into his debut, citing inspirations that span time and faculties—Emily Dickinson, Umberto Eco, synth-pop, Gustav Klimt, botanical art, and Beverly Hills, to name a few.

And in a striking departure from industry norms, nearly half the models appeared middle-aged and beyond. “Time provides grace, and it multiplies beauty,” Michele mused post-show. As we observe, couture, with its painstaking hours of craftsmanship, is the ultimate testament to this philosophy.

Valentino ateliers have long been synonymous with the highest echelons of fashion craftsmanship, but under Michele’s reign of unbridled romanticism, their signature savoir-faire has been transformed and rebirthed into something profound and poetic that inspires as much wide-eyed joy from afar as it does up-close in the details.