Alessandro Michele’s Valentino couture debut was the most anticipated ticket of Paris Couture Week, and the designer didn't disappoint with a lavish spectacle at the Palais Brongniart, a fittingly historic backdrop for his past-meets-present storytelling.

For his first haute couture collection for Valentino, Alessandro Michele dropped a stack of paper the size of a dissertation on each seat. Held together by a metal paper fastener were pages and pages of stream-of-consciousness lists. A random sampling: the description for look 37 included the sequence “petticoat, tundra, eschatology.”

Just a few days before Alessandro Michele’s inaugural Valentino couture show, the designer welcomed Vogue into his Paris atelier.

For his debut collection at the French house, the designer left 100-page documents as show notes on every seat at the runway show.

This afternoon in Paris (29 Janaury 2025), the Italian designer hit new heights with an eclectic, era-traversing couture collection for Valentino

When Alessandro Michele was growing up in Rome in the 1970s, one of his favorite pastimes was to rummage through his mother’s closet and to run his hands over the rustling taffeta, glinting sequins, and other adornments of time past.