PARIS — 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.

From Alessandro Michele's couture debut to Demna's special award, ELLE catches you up on everything you need to know.

Valentino presented a dizzying display at Paris haute couture week, fusing the past and present in theatrical, ostentatious designs. As the most hotly anticipated show of the week, Valentino’s spring/summer 2025 show was Alessandro Michele’s debut couture outing at the Italian fashion house.

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

The pop superstar’s pink shoes were at odds with the moody theatrics on the runway, which was a celebration of fashion as sheer theatre

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.

The Italian designer revealed 48 dresses, all fundamentally inspired by an idea at the nexus of infinity by Umberto Eco. See every look.

Red words scrolled along a black board, poetic descriptors heralding Alessandro Michele’s first haute couture collection for Valentino.

PARIS - Imagine being a Roman-born designer and being handed the keys to the most quintessentially Roman couture house. For Alessandro Michele, who on Wednesday joined the most rarefied ranks of his profession with his debut made-to-measure collection for Valentino,

Assessing Alessandro Michele’s couture debut for Valentino. Plus, Armani Privè and Chanel keep things moving and Gaurav Gupta surprises.

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.”