Just when you thought fashion month was over, Alessandro Michele adds one last stop on the way home. And it’s Rome.
Not Paris, not Milan, not another anonymous white cube on the outskirts of the fashion calendar. Rome – the Eternal City, birthplace of Valentino, a place where drama is practically civic infrastructure.
It’s impossible not to imagine the same journalists, celebrities, and fashion enthusiasts shuffling from city to city – New York, London, Milan, Paris – only to land back on a plane to Italy. What were their conversations en route? Praise and critique of collections, gossip from after-parties, complaints about exhaustion, threats that they won’t be awake enough for a cacio e pepe post-show. Yet, here they are, energised by the knowledge that Michele built a collection so compelling, so meticulously staged, that even after the marathon of fashion month, they wouldn’t miss it for the world.
This is what fashion is all about: the energy, anticipation, and the sense that anything can happen.
By the time attendees arrived at Palazzo Barberini on Thursday evening, the energy was electric, intoxicating, and the kind of thrill that makes you wish fashion month could stretch on just a little longer.
Inside Palazzo Barberini, the architecture became a collaborator in the show. The Baroque grandeur – rectilinear corridors, frescoed ceilings, and spiralling staircases – mirrored the tension in Michele’s Interferenze collection. Bernini’s staircases channel the body along a clear path, while Borromini’s curves destabilise, forcing constant adaptation. Michele’s garments echoed this duality. Sculpted coats and sharply tailored silhouettes imposed structure, while diaphanous layers, flowing fabrics, and cascading embellishments introduced a sense of drift and improvisation. Fashion and architecture collided in a dialogue that felt at once easy to understand and yet richly complex.
Colour played a starring role – something we’re seeing and loving everywhere this season. Deep claret and crimson shouted Valentino’s signature red, a direct line to Roman glamour, while midnight blues and inky blacks added a mysterious, nocturnal edge. Luminous gold embroidery, metallic silvers, and jewel-toned accents sparkled under the palace lights, while pale pastels and ethereal whites punctuated the richness, giving the eye space to wander and take it all in.
The silhouettes moved fluidly between eras. Velvet capes and structured coats referenced Renaissance and 1980s aristocratic drama, while slip dresses, sheer gowns, and crystal-studded layers dissolved rigidity into fantasy. Accessories amplified narrative: oversized jewellery, patterned tights, fur-trimmed belts, and headpieces transformed models into characters – Roman aristocrats, poets, eccentrics, wanderers through a cinematic city imagined by Michele.
Maximalism was present but controlled (whoever sets their eyes on the show will have to adopt the “go big or go home” persona after watching it.). Every embellishment, layering choice, and piece of fabric played a role in a visual choreography. Michele’s genius lies in orchestrating chaos into theatre, poetry, and of course design.
Hovering over the evening was the invisible presence of Valentino Garavani. The house’s late founder, whose aesthetic defined Roman glamour for decades, remained a guiding principle – his discipline and clarity of the brand’s look, feel, and voice will always live on. The tension between these sensibilities was electrifying: tailored coats interrupted by sheer metallics, ecclesiastical gowns rendered with glittering detail, tradition colliding with eccentricity.
Fashion month is done… but Alessandro Michele wasn’t ready to let it end. Valentino’s Roman return turned the season’s finale into a grand, cinematic extravaganza.
By the final look, as chandeliers reflected off frescoed ceilings and models exited through the palace corridors, it was clear: Valentino had returned home. Michele’s Interferenze was a demonstration of how fashion can honour tradition while pushing boundaries, Michele has yet again, created a collection that we want.
