Valentino lives forever in the house’s Spring 2026 couture collection

Alessandro Michele’s dramatic gowns evoked Old Hollywood glamour that once captivated and forever empowered Valentino Garavani.

He was the master of Italian glamour, a legendary designer celebrated for defining 20th-century haute couture. But more importantly, the great Valentino Garavani was a dreamer.

“I was dreaming, dreaming about movie stars, dreaming about everything beautiful in the world,” he said in Matt Tyrnauer’s 2008 documentary The Last Emperor. “I was always so attracted by magazines, by films.”

The yearning to dress beautiful women, which he developed at the young age of thirteen, turned Garavani into one of the fashion world’s greatest. He defined elegance for over five decades, dressing celebrities, royalty, and first ladies in his signature, vibrant “Valentino red.”

Nine days after his death on Jan. 19, 2026, Garavani’s luxury fashion house once again demonstrated how his legacy will live on forever through a haute couture collection, which draws from his greatest contribution: red carpet dressing.

For this season, creative director Alessandro Michele crafted a catalog of dramatic, structured gowns that resembled Old Hollywood glamour that Garavani had always loved. He wrote in the show notes that he was “conscious of a debt I owe” to Valentino’s legendary founder, and fount it only fitting to channel his gratitude on the house’s first collection since its icon’s passing.

The show at Tennis Club de Paris began with the same voiceover from The Last Emperor documentary where Garavani talked about his love of Old Hollywood and how going to the movies with his sister fueled his passion to “create beautiful clothes for the ladies.”

Instead of the usual runway, guest sat on stools around walled circular structures, and peered through small individual windows to see models showcasing the collection. The concept is starkly similar to the Kaiserpanorama, a 19th-century stereoscopic device by August Furhmann for viewing moving images and a precursor to the motion picture.

Michele added a quote from German philosopher Walter Benjamin about the revolutionary invention by: “One of the greatest attractions of the Kaiserpanorama was that you could start the carousel from any image. Since the mechanism before the seats moved around in a circle, each view passed before all the positions from which, through a double window, its faded remoteness could be seen.”

The use of the device for the show was “not as a nostalgic mention, but rather as a critical tool able to interrogate the contemporary conditions of the gaze,” Michele wrote in the show notes. He wanted to flip the gaze and invite everyone to look at fashion inwards.

The Valentino Spring 2026 couture collection reflected the elegant Old Hollywood aesthetic that Garavani and his luxury house, Valentino, has always committed themselves to. Titled Specula Mudi, or mirror of the world, the lineup features 60 high-fashion gowns that balanced historical opulence with quiet, modern restraint.

It featured dramatic looks and intricate, romantic details that were all designed to evoke awe and wonder, as viewers usually would in cinemas. Each piece glowed with movement. Models sauntered slowly inside the circular pods and spread out their arms to show off the full volume of the garments.

The opening look was a Valentino red caftan dress ruched at the centre for gentle draping—a look reminiscent of the ‘30s, when Garavani would have been a young child. The silhouette was rendered in various styles and degrees of adornment.

Several dresses were likewise sculpted with draping and pleats, and in true Michele fashion, adorned heavily with sequinsand jewels. Others heavily featured bows, ruffles, and intricate floral embroideries.

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Michele brought “quiet drama” to life in floor-length silhouettes in ivory and obsidian black. These subtly striking numbers conversed with the voluminous capes and cocooning coats that added to the theatrics of the collection.

Among the standouts was a blood-red velvet dress cut with monastic severity. a trench coat made from pleated gold lame, a fur-lined robe with fluttering golden paillettes, and an ivory gown adorned with dense silver filigre.

The collection moved between muted tones (ivory, black, gold) and sudden, intense,, bursts of color, including sapphire blue and Valentino red. And for the final look, Michele showcased s bridal look featuring a champagne-toned lame paired with a large skirt gathered at the waist and protrudes outwards from the bodice.

Putting all these cinematic together, Michele proves that Valentino Garavani’s legacy of transforming Hollywood fashion truly lives on.“Today, Valentino’s absence is real, tangible. It tears open a deep and painful void,” he wrote on Instagram after the show. “Nevertheless, his presence is still warmly felt. In the places he lived, in the gestures he taught, in the way his legacy is skillfully carried forward.”

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