Alessandro Michele’s New Life at Valentino

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. Today on the show, I'm joined by Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Valentino. Alessandro dialed in remotely from the Valentino Palazzo in Rome. We spoke about theater, philosophy, the beauty of doing nothing, and of course, his fashion and his upcoming couture show at Valentino. Here's my conversation with Alessandro Michele. It was such a pleasure speaking with him. Ciao, Alessandro. I'm so happy to see you, even if it is over Zoom. And Happy New Year to you. Oh, thank you. Happy New Year. I mean, it's gonna be the 2025, so I'm pretty positive.

0:48It's my number. It's a great number. And we're exactly, we're taping this podcast exactly two weeks from your Haute Couture debut for Valentino. So please tell me, tell me what your mood is like. How excited are you? I'm always like excited and stressed and nervous and happy. Many things, you know, because it's something that must be like this, you know. Otherwise means that I'm not on the right way. But I'm very excited and happy because I'm feeling so different, you know. And yeah, for the Pret-a-Porter, it's completely different, you know. It's the process, everything. So I'm curious too, you know.

1:46It's like that I'm approaching at something that I don't know. I mean, there is a piece of this trip. I need to really touch it to see what will be in Paris, you know. Well, I have to admit that I have gotten a preview of the piece that Rebecca Mead has written for the next issue of Vogue, in which she spoke to you. And you speak a little bit about how the process of making couture is different than ready to wear. And I wonder if you would dig into that a little bit here. I mean, there's a sort of a quality of building it from the foundation up, from the ground up. Yeah, I think that the first thing that I would like to say that being here in this house, that is not really a brand, you really feel it that everything started from the haute couture.

2:46I mean, it's almost everywhere, you know, the, how can I say, the shadow of that culture, you know, snaking in every corridor, room, hands, brain. I mean, people are almost working here different. You started to think in a different way, you know, every single piece, every single thing that you do. So I was very curious to investigate, you know, with my body, my eyes, my brain, my thoughts in what's really different, you know. And the first thing that I met, it's this unbelievable place that is the salon full of incredible people that they, it's like every single person is like a little wizard or kind of, you know, witch or something, I don't know, magical.

3:56And everything is under a spell, you know. When you walk inside the laboratory, it's like to be in another place, but also in a space of time that doesn't exist, you know. So it's incredible, you know. You see things that I never experimented before, like working on a piece for days, days, hours and hours, you know. And that's very different. And all the ritual of the making, it's completely different. Just the chance to use your hands so much and to see these beautiful things that you're at the petite man, as I think they're called, the things that they can do with their hands. Yeah, they do things, incredible things.

4:55And you can work in just one piece and you have to dedicate all of you to every single piece for hours and meeting, appointment. It's like a body. It's like a person that you are like building or making, you know, from zero. It's like a piece of architecture, a piece of, you know, it's very, I mean, it's, I think that it's something that people should see. Because it's very hard to explain. It's like when you're in front of something that belongs also to the nature, like a sunset, you know. You would spend hours to describe shades, lights, the volume that you see in front of the light that is building that volume, the incredible thing that you are seeing.

6:06But you can't really explain with the words. You know, so, I mean, every time I saw the dress and the things that are on the way, you know, and they are going to finish, you feel like, I don't want to say stupid things, but you feel like a kid. I mean, I'm working from a long time, but I never felt like this. So, I mean, it's really incredible. How would you say that it's unlocked your creativity? I think that that process and that this experience opened different doors, you know. I mean, in a way, at the beginning, I thought that it was exactly the same, you know. So I was going and I started to walk with the same process.

7:05And I found, you know, like a voice that was like whispering, you can go on in the same way. Because, I mean, I think that I just trying to take off from my brain. I think that I was like trying to understand what's the connection in the process between doing, you know, woman ready to wear show and a haute couture show. I was trying to understand what I had to change in the process because it's like that you need to spend a lot of time in just one piece, you know. And it's something that you can do really. on the ready to wear, because you are working like in thousand pieces and you have also to work going on on every piece if you choose, if you put together the things.

8:06This is like a single poem. You have to sing just one song every time. When you look at that dress, you have to be concentrated on that dress. You have to give to that dress all of yourself. In a very deep way. It's like a love affair, you know. It's like that you are dating because every day I didn't decide, Nicole. They choose me. I mean, all the single group of tailors, they were asking for an appointment because there was like a date. Meeting that body that came from nowhere, you know. Because you are so free that sometimes you like creating your own monster, you know? Things together. The things that came from somewhere very deep inside your mind, brain, heart, stomach.

9:10So it's a very deep meeting. Very intimate and just with one person. It's every single dress is like a story, many words, many thoughts, many investigation. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. Thank you.

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10:28And we're back. When I met you in September before your Ready to Wear debut, you talked a lot about the Valentino archives. And I wonder if you're looking at archival or vintage couture a lot through this process. You also just mentioned that there are many other references that you're weaving into the work. Yeah, the archive here is a presence. I usually say that it's a part of the story that you can ignore, you know. It's strong. It's fascinating, seductive. It's naky. You try to ignore. Sometimes it's still here and it's strong. Yes, I went to the archive as usual and everything started from a dress.

11:20You know, it was so big, the ocean, that I was trying to look at just a little piece of something that was really interesting. And I started from a dress of Valentino and I was reflecting probably, and I'm sure how Valentino, Mr. Valentino loved culture and probably cinema and history of heart. But I think that he, I mean, looking at some pieces, you can really recognize that he knows very well many things, you know, many interesting things from the past that he translated in the present, doing incredible and dreamy things, you know, very, yeah, very. Sometimes, I mean, looking now at that piece is that I didn't remember really, you know, and I was trying to think, I mean, why he did, what he was looking at and what I had to look at, why I had to do this process, you know.

12:33So, yes, I started from that. I think that I'm going to open with a kind that, I don't want to say a tradition, but an homage to a dress that came from the archive. I mean, I'm still thinking that that dress is going to be the first one that everyone they're going to see. It's never a copy, you know. it's more that I'm trying to investigate that kind of beauty that Mr. Valentino built. I mean, and I'm not him and I will not, I mean, I can compare myself to him. I'm another person, but yes, but sometimes I know that I'm in his home and sometimes I'm getting kind of strange suggestions and yes, I'm processing everything inside my brain, body and experience.

13:32I'm looking at you on this Zoom screen and you're in a beautiful space. Can you tell me a little bit about your new office and how you've made it your own? I mean that this mythical and incredible building that is Palazzo Mignanelli in Piazza Mignanelli Mignanelli Square in Rome on a side of Piazza di Spagna it's an incredible place first of all for the soul of this place it's not about just the beauty of the building of that stunning, incredible things that you're seeing that is a piece of Renaissance of Roman Palazzo. This room, it's on, there are on this floor two rooms. One was the room in the office of Mr.

14:27Valentino that is a little bit smaller, but so elegant with an amazing ceiling. And this is the space that I, for what I got, And it's the space that belongs to Mr. Valentino and especially Mr. Giametti. I'm glad you brought up Giancarlo Giametti because I was seated a few seats down from him at your show in the fall. And I was so touched to see that he had his phone out and he was FaceTiming with Mr. Valentino, who wasn't at the show. So Mr. Valentino was watching the show while it was happening. And it just, you know, talk about the full circle of life or of a brand. It felt very moving to me.

15:18And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your debut and what are the, you know, the memories now. It's a few months later. What do you cherish most about it?

15:30Not easy. Many, many things. If I go back, it's, I mean, it's just yesterday, you know, it's not really a long time. So, but I was so nervous and, uh, I felt myself so strange because outside was such, I mean, I was feeling that incredible energy, you know, that from people that are, that I know, friends and family and colleagues and Jacopo Venturini, that he was like there with me. And yes, also all the people and Giancarlo and probably Mr. Valentino that was not there. But I was surrounded by love. And I remember, I still keep in my heart and in my brain, many skies that I saw from the big window of Place Van Damme.

16:44When I was working all these beautiful dresses and things, I was always with that incredible frescoes outside the window. I mean, that light that you can see just in Paris sometimes. And I spent like more than a week in that incredible place, working with all my energy, love, laughing with all the people that were sharing with me that dream. I think that it's been such a great experience, you know, because being for 21 years in Gucci, in another brand, and discovering another place so rich and so seductive, you know, and I felt myself like in the middle of a poem, a novel, book. Yeah, everything was so magical.

17:45I knew and I understood very clear that there is such a big connection between that job and me, you know, and all the beautiful things that belongs to this job that is such a gift, you know. So this podcast will be coming out shortly before the Couture show. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your plans for how to show it. The show that you did for Ready to Wear for Pret-a-Porter was, you know, very moody with the cracked glass floor and the furniture covered in slipcovers. And, you know, this vibe of, you know, going into the Valentino attic or your grandmother's attic. Are you planning something similar or will it be more traditional in the traditional sort of salons of couture?

18:44No, it's not looking really traditional, I think. But I'm not sure about tradition. I mean, I'm really bad. Yes, I got it what you mean. No, I'm trying to work. You know, Nicole, when I work, I'm working on a movie of a theater piece. I'm thinking about you, that you're coming in a space. I need you to show what I'm thinking about and what I want to make you experience, you know. I need to make you take a walk in my brain and in my space. Take a walk in my brain. That is such a great way to put it. It made me think of something that I was talking with my colleagues, and they pointed out, and I think this is correct, that you don't work with a stylist the way many other designers do.

19:52Can you talk a little bit about that? But why do you choose not to when a lot of your peers really rely on that stylist relationship? I think, I mean, that's very, I think, such a personal thought and such, I'm talking about me. I mean, the styling, it's a big piece of the job. Also, it didn't come at the end. And it started with the idea of the volume, of the length, of the attitude. Who is that woman? Who is the crew? In which way they're going to... Because where that thing... I mean, you can change in a very strong way the attitude of a dress, of a look, changing and putting layers or taking off pieces or finding the face, you know?

20:53And I think that it's 100 % my job because I'm not a tailor. I'm not a couturier. I respect their job. And I like many stylists. I think that some of them, they can get a job also. Because a big creative director is not far in a way. You need many pieces of the cake. It's a big composition. I mean, for me, I like fabric. I like the research. I like to look at the movie, to read the book, to fix the world, to change the hair, to put my hands. I'm the one that works a lot with the hairdresser, with the makeup artist. I mean, I feel myself also like a hairdresser, for example. It's all my job. And it's the most fascinating, beautiful part of the job.

21:55I mean, how can you think about a skirt doing just a skirt? It's like that you are writing a line of a poem, but just a line. And what is going to be? It's very weird, you know. But, I mean, I understand that other people, they like to share and to approach their job in another way. I think that the landscape, also the playground is huge. And there are many ways to be. I like to be in this way, and I don't know other ways. One of the many observations that I've made looking at your show again and again in the months after is that, you know, I never wear dresses or skirts, but you have made me want to buy all sorts of Valentino tights and stockings because there's just so many beautiful tights and stockings in your show and in the lookbooks for the preseasons.

23:01seasons. So I wanted to talk about the people, the real life people who we've seen starting to wear the Valentino clothes. Coleman Domingo looked so incredible at the Golden Globes. And I think the next night, Elle Fanning was in New York City in the loveliest lilac dress. And how does it feel to start seeing these pieces walk out into the world? I'm happy because, I mean, I'm not the one that tried to push, you know, people. I like that the friends we met, we knew, they like what I'm doing, they take the pieces from the dream and put in the real life, and the real life started to be like a dream.

23:50and Elle was amazing and yes, everybody were amazing. Lana, that is a friend, she was amazing and new people also came, I think, curious to see about, you know, the things that I'm doing. I think that is beautiful, you know, and it's incredible because it's when I look at the things and I see the things outside from the catwalk, you see something a little different, you know, that it's interesting, you know. You see a piece of your thoughts or things that you know very well, that are very familiar, that are like embodying other lives and, yes, piece of other lives. And you see something different.

24:40So I think that that's the story of every single dress and that's the story of fashion, you know, that you do things and they leave you forever. They're going to walk somewhere that you are not with them. They likely the kids or pieces of your life that are, you know, like without control. And I like, you know, because the people also interpret it. I mean, it's one of the things that I really love because, as you know, I have a big passion to be as a custom designer to see different faces. It's more connected with life, so I like it. More with Alessandro Michele after the break.

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26:08Let's talk about real life for a minute. But what have you been reading or watching lately that you've loved? Is there anything that's touched you recently? There is a movie that I still keep in my heart from years and years. It is Dancing in the Dark with Catherine Deneuve and Björk. That is the masterpiece. I mean, I never, ever so watched something like this, ever. Recently, but there are many, you know, I think that one of the most incredible things that I saw recently, it's seeing my two nephews growing, touching my life and my way to see the earth, my life, the future, the light that I see in the countryside.

27:06I have a beautiful, cozy place in the countryside, and they are the light, piece of the light of my life. And now they are like giants, and they were like two little, you know, babies. They make me think about the future in such a positive way. They make me think about the light that I see in the countryside as a miracle. as they are. That's the things, the most beautiful things that make me feel in a different way. It's an easy thing and a simple thing. And sometimes I'm very complicated, you know. When I look at them, it's simple. It's just incredible. It's just incredible when you see that red light in the sky, you know, in the winter.

28:06in the countryside at 5 o 'clock p.m., then you see this life is incredible. They are incredible, you know. I have two nephews, too, so I can relate to what you're saying. At the show in the fall, I was really mesmerized by the soundtrack, and I wrote about it in my review, but there was this refrain, joy we must chase, joy we must chase, and it's so moving. And when I told my colleagues I was interviewing you and I said, is there anything you want to know from Alessandro? And people are quite curious about your real life because you live beautifully. And so I wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about, you know, your time away from Valentino.

28:55You spend a lot of time with your nephews maybe, but what else do you like to do? I like to do simple things, you know, because I think that I... I changed the simple thinking very complicated. And I also, I think that I'm really good to select what I really need, you know? Also when I'm trying to do nothing, I mean, I'm really good. When I leave also the company, when I, and I had more than a year just by myself and my things, I discovered that it's so incredible when you find the right way to be just doing nothing. That it's so hard, you know, not watching Instagram, no, doing nothing. Maybe having a walk in the countryside, you know, for an hour.

29:53I mean, I like it, you know. I think that I'm not really good to translate what is my life, you know, because I don't have another life. So it's like if you, Nicole, you ask me about what is about your body. It's my body. I like my body. It's the only one that make me walk. It made me, you know, experience. So I like this life. My life is the life that I choose from many, you know, experience. And I mean, I started to fight with all the people that were outside my life from the very first moment and year of my life because I was a little different, you know. So now I'm 52 and I'm so happy. What you're saying really resonates for me because, of course, when you had this year and a half to do nothing, as you say, you also wrote this book of philosophy, which we are waiting for it to be translated into English.

31:09But there's something about the way that you talk and the way that you design. It's quite—it's all the same, as you say. It's similar. And I just want to—Tiziana Cardini, my colleague, interviewed you, and I just want to read this quote because it's so beautiful. You said that clothes aren't only artifacts. Rather, they're doors, vessels, hallways that lead us to a different reality, denser, richer, more ambiguous than we could inhabit if they weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, I wrote that book by accident in a way. Yeah. It's, uh, it's something that belongs to my little, nice, rich life.

31:49I mean, I just did it because we decided to write something that was like investigation about kind of, yeah, philosophical things that, uh, the translation is life, you know, and my job. And I mean, at the end, it's been such a great experience. Yes, I think that I like fashion because I think that fashion is so just connected with life and in a very immediate and easy way. And also, I think that it's a dress. It's like, yes, it's like a space. It's like a foyer, a corridor. It's like that you're opening another space and you can habitate that space. You can change. It's very complicated things to explain, but when you find the power that clothes got, I think that it's really incredible.

32:59It's a, you can live other life. You can, you can walk when you are in the changing room and you change yourself. It's like that you, yes, you, you like open a door and the dress, I mean, clothes. It's like the, the whispering inviting you to, you want to come, you want to walk through. What do you think? You want to, you want to see other places. You want to try to, yes, to find other side of you. I want to ask you one last question. When I think back to your work at Gucci, you know, you really touched a lot more than just fashion. You know, you touched culture. You launched the Gucci Vault, resurrecting, you know, the brand's vintage.

33:50But you also did so much to help younger designers. I think of my friend Hillary Tamor at Kalina Strada, for example. And you worked with Gus Van Zandt during COVID. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit of what your Valentino dreams are, some of the ways that beyond clothes you hope to touch people.

34:17Not easy to say because, I mean, I didn't really plan at that time. I mean, I was just living and many things happened. And I think that I'm the same person, you know, in the way that I approach. I mean, I can see and I can feel the power of this job. And we are in the last 10, 15 years, this power, you know, for many reasons. And some of these reasons are also sometimes bad, you know, because there is this incredible, beautiful problem of money, power. But, I mean, I would bring here, you know, a new point of view. I mean, fashion can build a better dreamy place. And yeah, I will do the same here in a different way with, I mean, in a different age now.

35:20And I look at the things in a different way, but I like young people. I like, you know, I like artists. I mean, it's, I feel so good. Yeah. If I go back, you mentioned Gas. When I look back at that movie that we did together, it's so insane. I'm so proud because I did things that were not allowed to do it. And that's my way to, yes, I would close because maybe I'm not, you know, answering in a precise way because I'm never precise. I can be precise. and yeah I like to do with other people things that are not allowed That is a very good way to end Alessandro we are going to be counting the days till your Couture show thank you so much for joining me here Thank you Nicole thank you so much I can't wait to see you in Paris Me too Bye bye Bye bye Ciao Ciao Ciao Nicole Ciao

36:37That's it for The Run-Through. See you Thursday.