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(CNN) — 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.
Celebrities including Barry Keoghan, Chappell Roan and Jared Leto posed for photos next to sinks equipped with mirrors and wall-mounted soap dispensers. Industry guests then took their seats facing a row of toilet stalls, before the sound of flushing signaled that proceedings were underway.
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.
Elsewhere, everything from glittering evening gowns to chunky winter coats — in materials ranging from cascading tulle to shaggy faux furs — offered the kind of theatricality fashion-watchers now expect from a man who once trained as a costume designer. Almost every model sported headwear of some description, whether a nude headband, black snood, asymmetric wide-brimmed hat or military-inspired cap.
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.
Michele’s vision may, also, be more overtly political than the label is accustomed to. In an apparent commentary on debates about transgender bathrooms, Michele’s show notes suggested that his restroom (in which androgynous models were among those showcasing both men’s and women’s clothes) was “proudly political because it has the potential to subvert any rigid binary classification.”
It is only Michele’s second ready-to-wear collection for the label, but the range appeared to be well received by guests, who clapped and cheered for the designer as he took the stage before he, too, disappeared into a cubicle.
The-CNN-Wire
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