Valentino. Spring/Summer 2026 - Milan Fashion Week

It's so good see Alessandro Michele's return, after being, let's be honest here, kicked from Gucci.  He really is one of the most sincere of the more recognizable fashion designers left in the industry, who are all defined by their own creative drive versus the corporate world of falling share prices, and conglomerate pressure.  With the avenge lifespan of a designer operating under these mega holding companies such as Kering or LVMH,  a 5 year tenure is the norm, Michele able to muster 7 years with Gucci, before being asked to leave, while Kering shifting three creative directors around, Demna Gvasalia went to Gucci, Pierpaolo Piccioli took Balenciaga, and Michele for Valentino.  And despite Kering owning 30% of Valentino, you can see how much weight and influence on brand names Kering has, in setting up renewed markets. 

Michele, despite the said squeeze between creativity and profits, has always stood his ground with being soical aware, pleading for fashion to slow down during the pandemic, and now with his debut for Valentino, he titled the show as "FIREFLIES", in homage to the late Italian director Paolo Pasolini, that they represent a "glimmer" with the "darkness of ruling fascism" during the 1940s.  And the Italian should know, as Benito Mussolini Fascism, as been reinvigorated under Trump 2.0 and most of Europe, with the Centre Right governments of the world, one-by-one are all leaning towards proto Fascism to full blown Fascism, mixed with capitalism's evil twin, corporatism.  Yes, globally, we are in trouble, and we do need light to guard us out.  And it very well might be Gen Z who will lead the charge, with a massive challenge ahead of them, and we all can lend a hand, a join the chorus.  

Yet, things do look a somewhat back to front, with 20 year olds now rebellion against decades of Middle Class complacency (not the 'boomers', blame Gen X and Y), stagnation and greed, where it was all about stability over change, the counterculture we await, is still elusive under the digital umbrella.  Without it being reduced to a simulacrum of fleeting rebellion, which it has done on the past, it will be interesting to see, aesthetically, what will evolve as a renewed counterculture.  And a start could be, staring at phone screens will become less of a fixation.  In the meantime, Michele has, as he did when he was with Gucci, borrowed stylizations from the 1970s and 1980s thrift, quirky styles, which was the peak of the counterculture years.  

And not to forget, sexuality and sexual expression is, at its core, a counterculture projection, that became taboo and extremely misogynistic through the DVD excesse of the 1990s, to the waves of digitized pornography, at the start of the new millennium, to take it back would let sex become more openingly intimate, maybe even hedonistic, without the commercialized digital relay.  And with Michele's latest collection, he has very much offered that carnal quirkness of eros as rebellion, quoted as saying, in relation to the collection, "to make people dream, to try to escape, not just from reality, but from the idea that you can do nothing."  And Michele's parallel reality dreamlike styles are just what we need, maybe when the smoke does eventually clear, and the dankness is lifted, we return to a period of change, not perfect, it never is, but enough for us to revel in its distinction from Fascism, and real enough for us to feel it, even if it is just a moment in time.  We don't need them, the powers at be, attempting to structure our society and lives to their Far Right template.  Let's share the chaos with each other, and enjoy the change.

Bravo Alessandro Michele!

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(A.Glass 2025)