It's always disheartening when you invest time and effort into something you believe in, only to have your efforts undermined by unexpected events. Many fashion lecturers emphasizing the importance of quality over quantity to their students must have felt like this after Alessandro Michele unveiled his Resort 25 collection for Valentino.
Michele stepped down as Creative Director of Gucci in November 2022. Amidst speculation about his next move - whether starting his own brand or joining the recently resurrected but not yet relaunched Walter Albini - he took a sabbatical year from the fashion scene. During this time, he co-authored a book with philosopher Emanuele Coccia, titled "La vita delle forme" ("The Life of Forms - Theory of the Re-enchantment," HarperCollins), which will be available in English next year.
In the volume, fashion is explored through a dialogue and interpreted as philosophy, a concept confirmed by the erudite press notes Michele wrote for his Gucci collections from 2015 to 2022, which were regarded as mini-essays (note: Michele's fans will love the book; other readers will instead feel like Menippus in Lucian's satirical "Icaromenippus" - in the satire Menippus expects to gain wisdom and truth from philosophers, but ends up being left in an even more confused state than he was. "They perplexed me more and more, with their daily drenches of beginnings and ends, atoms and voids, matters and forms," Menippus says).
In April of this year, it was announced that Michele was heading to Valentino, following Pierpaolo Piccioli’s departure in March (the constant game of revolving chairs in the fashion industry is indeed complex and endless).
Although the first proper Valentino runway show under Michele will take place in Paris in September, the Rome-based fashion house shared a lookbook on Monday featuring Michele's women’s and men’s 2025 Resort collections.
The lookbook was quintessentially Michele, showcasing designs and styling reminiscent of his tenure at Gucci, accompanied by accessories adorned with the iconic "V" logo. Michele drew significant inspiration from Valentino's '70s style, harkening back to the days when the Italian designer strolled around Capri with Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
One red coat paid homage to Valentino's signature color, the iconic "Rosso Valentino" that has made fashion history. However, the main reference was the designer's all-white couture collection from 1968, as proved by the white and cream designs that dominated this collection.
Valentino Garavani’s hippie chic years were thus combined with Michele's own maximalist vision.
The latter materialized in skirts and dresses adorned with ruffles, dramatic capes, evening gowns covered in beaded and sequined embroideries, dresses with oversized collars, tweed suits, and kimono-like jackets. The aesthetic mood was Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaum" meets Bernardo Bertolucci’s "The Conformist".
Accessories included turbans and pillbox hats, bow-shaped barrettes, long strands of pearls, fringed satchels very similar to the ones that were popular in the '70s, pumps with bows, and cork platform sneakers reminiscent of the calcagnini-inspired platforms seen in Gucci’s S/S 17 collection.
The offer also included plenty of designs that celebrities will love for the red carpet: some intricately embellished, embroidered, and sequined gowns would not look out of place in a couture lineup, proving that Michele will have no trouble designing a couture collection.
Indeed, the issue was not the content of the images or the collection itself, which tended to hybridize Michele's taste and style as seen at Gucci, with Valentino’s essence - a process humorously dubbed "Vucci" by Instagram commentators. After all, it’s evident that Michele will bring to Valentino his passion for maximalism, from silk scarves worn as turbans to geeky glasses and genderless pussy-bow blouses.
The real problem with this collection was the sheer volume of looks presented. The lookbook included a staggering 171 images of complete outfits and 93 of accessories. The first thought that comes to mind when considering the number of pictures is that Valentino made a significant investment, with Michele working non-stop since April to produce all these looks. Moreover, the brand must have granted him considerable creative freedom, allowing him to create without heavily editing the collection.
Yet, there are pros and cons in this strategy. While there’s certainly a lot to see, this may prove to be an exhausting exercise for consumers. Such a lengthy lookbook can induce fatigue, leading to the impression that the layered looks and abundance of details aren’t driven by a desire to create something unique but rather by a perverse hope to outdo competitors (Gucci included - Valentino's Resort lookbook was indeed unveiled on the same day Gucci's menswear show took place in Milan) by annihilating them with an immense collection.
Moreover, an excessive number of looks doesn't necessarily demonstrate a designer’s talent for fashion design, as it prevents clear analysis. However, in this case, it does showcase Michele's undeniable talent as a stylist.
Does this mean a fashion house should limit a designer’s creativity? Certainly not. But even the best novel undergoes editing to ensure it remains engaging. In the case of this collection, that’s precisely what was missing - editing. Even Adrian Appiolaza's debut collection at Moschino, which balanced his personal inspirations with the brand’s essence, could have benefited from some judicious cuts.
Wait, though! Maybe there is a purpose behind this vast collection: it could be interpreted as a memory game where you browse through it and try to spot designs that look the same.
Some pictures from the lookbook included indeed the same garments or accessories styled differently, as if the looks had been endlessly remixed, or the same print or textile adapted in different designs (which is perfectly understandable, but can be redundant as well). The "memory game" approach fits Michele's "Twin" vision, as exemplified on Gucci’s S/S 23 runway and in one of the sections of his book. Alternatively, you could view this collection as a different memory game where you browse Gucci’s past collections to spot the connections with Valentino's Resort 2025.
In data science, you focus on the most interesting elements of the dataset and use them as anchors to build your results, but here it was impossible to do so as the eye wandered, ultimately resulting in nothing more than a great fashion fatigue. It's challenging to convince consumers to buy fewer clothes and focus on quality over quantity. In this case, quality wasn’t the problem; it was the overwhelming quantity that proved too distracting.
So, what to hope for the future? Let Michele have his creative freedom, certainly, but for the sake of consumers, let's hope for some editing. If this collection was an unscheduled "surprise," one can only dread what may happen with a scheduled collection - perhaps 300 looks?
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