Valentino's Alessandro Michele's Public Bathroom Was The Most Fashionable Spot In Paris

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Amid the glitzy parties and star-studded front rows of Paris Fashion Week , the hottest ticket in France's capital on Sunday afternoon was… a public bathroom. Or a venue designed to look like one, at least.

This was Valentino's Fall-Winter 2025 show, which saw the Italian label's creative director Alessandro Michele transform a Paris venue into an atmospheric bathroom, complete with tiled floors and ceiling strip lamps. Models emerged from (and sometimes disappeared into) mock cubicles, bathed in red light, wearing the designer's latest ready-to-wear creations.

Dubbed "Le Méta-Théâtre Des Intimités" (or "The Meta-Theater of Intimacies"), the presentation was a statement of intent from Michele, who took the helm at Valentino last March after two decades designing for Gucci.

In the show notes, Michele described his set as a "dystopian, disturbing" space inspired by the late director David Lynch . Referencing poets and philosophers, including Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt and Mario Perniola, he wrote that a public restroom is "a counter-place" that "neutralizes and suspends" the boundary between inside and outside — between the deeply intimate and the inescapably public.

Michele's collection did much the same. Lingerie was worn over outerwear or rendered visible by sheer lace; a model in pale, thigh-bearing short-shorts was followed down the runway by one almost entirely cloaked in black; a high-fashion bathrobe was paired with a shirt and necktie.

The mix-and-match collection marked a significant departure from the classically elegant vision of Valentino crafted by his predecessor, Pierpaolo Piccioli, who leant on the house's haute couture heritage and — at Paris Fashion Week three years ago — once put all his models in near-identical shades of bright pink.

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