Yesterday, Alessandro Michele presented his Fall 2026 Valentino show inside Palazzo Barberini, a feat of architecture that holds a lingering conceptual tension between the two radically different artists who were commissioned to construct it. For a collection titled Interferenze, which focused on Michele’s self‑proclaimed off‑kilter interpretations of the house’s traditional codes, the setting proved remarkably fitting.
This season, Michele examined what it means to lead a design house that does not bear your name, and the tension that arises when one must strike a balance between reinvention and tribute. Quickly, he has grasped the gravitas of his position at the helm of such a storied couture house and has refreshingly chosen to embrace the “interference” he felt he was causing.
That is not to say Valentino Garavani’s sensibilities were absent. As the collection unfolded, hints of the couturier’s legacy appeared throughout. The backs of garments were deeply intricate, an attention to detail Garavani long obsessed over. Elaborate pleats and knotted jackets framed the rears of the looks, while asymmetry, another house favourite, surfaced repeatedly — most notably in a pink satin and black velvet dress and in the swooping drapes of silk looks. Taffeta ball skirts and gently curving shoulders, meanwhile, were details you could easily imagine Mr Valentino himself impressed by.
In a true metamorphosis, Michele honoured the house’s full trajectory. Lace‑hemmed jeans emerged alongside the infamous Rockstud pumps, while satin sashes and bow‑tied belts cinched colour‑blocked tunics and dresses, carving strong silhouettes with the power‑shoulders that dominated the collection. Elsewhere, shirts were cut low at the front, fur appeared luxuriously voluminous as jackets and shawls, and that signature off‑kilter precision echoed through seemingly random pleating.
Menswear took a safer route, with long tailored coats, sharp blazers, and denim interrupted by those obscured pleats.
The colour palette was a triumph of bold, rich tones, often pairing shades in unexpected yet wholly successful combinations: an aquamarine blue pleated dress wrapped with a plum satin sash, or a black and mustard gown in a near‑ecclesiastical silhouette accompanied by electric blue gloves. Embellishment, though ever‑present, felt more pared back for Michele, perhaps signalling a new ease that allowed the garments to speak for themselves.
The show closed with a red full‑length gown, split in a V from its structured shoulders down to the sacrum — a tribute to the iconic Valentino red that has long defined the house. “He did red once, and now you have red in every collection. Most of our statements came to be because we are romantic; we don’t like to throw away things we like or that bring good luck,” Giancarlo Giammetti told Vogue in 1985. Taking pride of place in the front row, he witnessed how that good luck seemed to linger, as the collection became a beautiful exercise in honouring those who came before, while acknowledging both the industry’s progressive demands and the designer’s right to infuse the house with his own vision.
