The setting proved to be a clever backdrop for Michele’s fourth ready-to-wear collection for Valentino. Titled Antibiblioteca, the collection was inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s idea of the “antilibrary”: the books we own but have never read, and the knowledge they contain that is still waiting to be discovered. For Michele, these unread books were much like the clothes we keep in our wardrobes and may never actually wear. Yet that does nothing to diminish their importance, or the fact that they are pieces worth owning.
Image: Courtesy of Valentino
The idea is simple, but it says a lot about Michele’s view of fashion. For him, clothes have always represented the lives we could have lived. His collections have long been filled with ideas, references and characters, but at times it has been difficult to distinguish Alessandro Michele’s signature from Valentino’s identity. This season, he seemed more focused on giving all those ideas a clearer structure.
Image: Courtesy of Valentino
The collection included all the elements we have come to expect from him: satin corsets, lace blouses, slim skirts, feathers, fringe, broad shoulders, sequins, baseball caps, pleated trousers and glamorous evening dresses. It was a show full of details, and fortunately, there was a good reason for it. The clothes seemed like different characters living in the same library, and that diversity felt intentional. To us, it reflected the designer’s desire to give these ideas a clearer identity.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
Michele mixed elements that we would normally consider unlikely partners: a green leather jacket with a sculpted fuchsia skirt, sequins decorating casual trousers, and a baseball cap paired with an evening look. It felt as though his aim was to create deliberately mismatched combinations. This is hardly surprising for a designer who has never seemed interested in creating a stereotypical Valentino woman. Michele has always been known for designs that step outside the expected, and this time he took that rebellious approach and turned it into a wardrobe that could suit women with very different personalities, using an abundance of details and embellishment.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
And yet, the strongest moments of the show came when the designer stopped trying to say everything at once.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
This may be the most important lesson from the collection. A house like Valentino already has a rich world of its own: refined craftsmanship, romance, colour, fantasy and a strong sense of occasion are all deeply rooted in its history. Michele did not really need to add more ideas to make the house distinctive. What he needed was to identify which ideas were worth carrying forward. This season, that process of selection felt clearer than before.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
It was particularly evident in the eveningwear, where Michele brought together his own taste for rhinestones, ruffles and embellishment with the carefully controlled drama that has always defined Valentino. Some dresses were simple and fluid, while others embraced deliberate extravagance. Some relied on colour, others on embroidery, but the strongest looks were those that brought contrasting pieces together, sometimes mixing styles traditionally associated with evening and daytime within the same look.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
If you asked us how we felt about the collection, we would say we fell in love with it, in every sense. We loved the idea behind the show, and that feeling carried through to the clothes, which somehow made sense despite their beautiful moments of chaos. One feeling stayed with us throughout the show: everything felt alive. The designs seemed animated, moving and dynamic, filled with a kind of elegance that not everyone would dare to embrace.
Image: Courtesy of Valentino
Antibiblioteca also felt more elegant and cohesive than some of Michele’s previous collections for the house, because the concept gave his many ideas enough room to express themselves.
Images: Courtesy of Valentino
Ultimately, Michele has already proved that he can give Valentino a new emotional world. He has now moved on to testing some of the strongest elements of the house’s heritage and bringing them back into focus: sharper designs, expressive colours and carefully considered glamour, along with just enough eccentricity to make the clothes unmistakably his.
Image: Courtesy of Valentino
When these elements come together, it feels as though Michele is beginning to find his real path at Valentino, where his own style meets the identity of the house without one overpowering the other.
