"The haute couture is a splendid paradox. The same garments can be perceived as expressive of utmost intimacy or absolute spectacle, an innately private pleasure or a public declaration - of aesthetics, value systems, even just largesse. Generally, a couture house pitches itself on one side of those great divides, but Alessandro Michele decided to embrace those contradictions, staging his Valentino show as a remarkable, provocative, multi-angled address of all couture is, was and could be,"
"Here's the scene: 26 alphabetically-annotated cylinders, each one studded with a dozen or so metal-slatted peepholes, crouching stool alongside, like an especially chic twitcher's den. The music ramped up, the hatches were wordlessly slid open by a white-gloved butler, and the audience stared in to see the show. The notion was borrowed - it's officially a Kaiserpanorama which, as its name suggests, is a bygone relic of the 19th century, arguably like haute couture itself."
Alessandro Michele staged Valentino's Spring/Summer 2026 haute couture as a deliberate confrontation of couture's inherent paradoxes between intimacy and spectacle. The presentation used 26 alphabetically annotated cylinders with metal-slatted peepholes — a modern Kaiserpanorama — to create an immersive peep-show where live models vamped and camped in garments. The installation redirected concentrated looking onto fabric, embroidery, and craftsmanship, collapsing private and public modes of display. The work framed couture as both a relic and a living practice, insisting on intensified attention to material detail while acknowledging fashion's voyeuristic, hyper-visual culture.
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