Step Inside Alessandro Michele’s Valentino Atelier Ahead of His First Couture Show

[calm melodic music]

I'm Alessandro.

I'm 52 years old.

I'm a fashion designer.

[calm melodic music]

So it's a cloudy day, cold in Paris,

and I'm here working for my first couture show

for Valentino.

It's a beginning, you know.

Like every beginning, it's beautiful, it's exciting,

but it's also stressful.

[speaking in foreign language]

[continuing to speak in foreign language]

The collection is an incredible, for me,

exercise of creativity.

It's been like trying to play with imagination.

[calm melodic music]

I was also thinking about, you know,

the golden age that probably Mr. Valentino lived

during the cinecitta time,

and looking at all these incredible atelier.

They were doing incredible dress for movies,

Visconti and Federico Fellini,

and it's like a deep dive in all this crazy world.

[calm melodic music]

[paper rustling]

[people conversation in background]

I think that Mr. Valentino means for many people

a kind of classical beauty.

My way to approach beauty is more, it's more savage.

I like the wrong things that became beautiful, you know?

I try to be wild,

to have like a strong and in a way

different conversation with him.

His presence is so big, you must find your way.

How do you feel working with [indistinct]?

Was it better the other?

[Woman] It's harder than-- Ah, it's harder.

Walk again.

[speaking in foreign language]

It started from kind of a coat, a Robe Manteau

from Mr. Valentino.

And I was thinking about the idea

of the coat that is very contemporary,

but it's also interesting

because there's a piece of the [indistinct]

that came from, you know, military things.

And so I started to work on that coat

as a 18th-century dress.

[calm melodic music]

We have like five atelier

and they work just by themself in a very also secret way

that is very fascinating.

I feel myself like that I'm learning

because this is so different

from being just a fashion designer, you know,

because there is like a ritual about this job.

You need to know who do that specific thing.

I never seen something like this in my life.

Believe me, I think that you must really see to understand.

I felt at the beginning very shy to start this work.

I met many extraordinary human beings

with such a big passions.

I've been enchanted about the way they work by hands

in every single piece for hours and hours.

There are people, they're here

from such a long, long time, you know?

I'm thinking about Antonionetta.

She's here from 38 years.

She's the master, one of the master

of the studio, iconic.

She makes these masterpieces from years and years.

And she's always, always the perfect

and you know, so fashionable, the best hair ever.

[laughing]

There are so many people that you can really feel

that they care about what they're doing, you know?

And through the clothes,

and through every single stitch,

I think that we note like the beginning of a friendship.

I respect them so much

and I hope that they're gonna understand,

I mean, what I feel about this job.

[calm melodic music]

When the dress come up in the room,

they cover with paper all the mannequin.

[calm melodic music]

There is a ritual that you must follow, you know?

Every single atelier,

they really work by themself every time.

I mean, they do things. It's like a secret.

[calm melodic music]

I love fashion, I love arts.

I love freedom and crazy things.

This is almost my way to work,

giving a science to that, you know, mess.

[melodic music intensifies]

Hello, good morning. How are you?

[people conversing in background]

[speaking in foreign language]

[people conversing in background]

[speaking in foreign language]

We just trying to fix the dress,

you know, the volume of the gown.

I'm trying to make it like a sculpture.

It's the first time that we see almost finish, you know?

Yeah, but it's also beautiful

because could be also 1950 tapestry.

It could be the dress of, you know, Elizabeth I,

and could be a joke,

could be a kid that make a dress with the mom's carpet.

you know, in the dining room.

[speaking in foreign language]

[indistinct] was about freedom.

And the aristocratic, they like to change their identity.

I mean, they love so much masquerades or wearing masks

because they felt free to do everything they want.

It is such a powerful object,

especially now we found a way to wear a mask

going through the social media

and how to change your identity

and to multiply your identities.

[speaking in foreign language]

Okay.

I don't like time in general.

I think that doesn't make sense to, you know,

put boundaries in the idea of ages.

And I was trying to investigate that kind of relation

between body dress, different faces,

and yes, probably for most of the people, different ages,

but doesn't exist really different ages.

Exists different lives, different way to live,

different experience.

I like people, so I don't wanna make

like boundaries between human beings.

[all applauding]

I'm showing the collection

in such a specific moment of our life.

So many things has changing politically, culturally.

I think that everybody, we need to fight,

showing more and more incredible expression

of creativity and imagination.

I hope that people are gonna leave the room stronger

than before, thinking that we are capable to do many things.

[calm melodic music]