With Pre-Fall 2026, Valentino enters a quietly transformative chapter under the creative direction of Alessandro Michele. Rather than announcing a rupture, the campaign unfolds as a subtle recalibration, an introspective dialogue between past and present, where identity is not rewritten but reawakened.

Photographed by Johnny Dufort and set within the evocative interiors of Cy Twombly’s palazzo, the campaign centers on Apolline Rocco Fohrer as a solitary presence moving through space with quiet intention. The setting is not merely atmospheric; it functions as an intellectual framework, one that mirrors Michele’s own approach to fashion as layered, emotional, and deliberately unresolved.

The visual language is striking in its restraint. Sparse interiors replace spectacle, allowing gesture, posture, and pause to carry meaning. Styled by Jonathan Kaye, the compositions feel almost suspended in time, heads turned, bodies stilled, as if caught mid-thought. This rhythm echoes Twombly’s own practice, where marks and movements exist in a state of perpetual becoming.

Within this stillness, the clothes speak with clarity. Michele tempers his instinct for ornament with the discipline of the Valentino atelier, refining silhouettes into something more fluid, more introspective. Tailoring is softened, lines gently deviate, and structure gives way to a controlled sense of movement. It is a study in precision, where elegance is not imposed but allowed to unfold.

Beauty direction follows this same philosophy. Makeup by Yadim Carranza and hair by Esther Langham remain understated, ensuring the human presence feels integrated rather than embellished. The result is a quiet tension between body and garment, presence and absence.

What emerges is a campaign defined by its sense of “quiet confidence". Michele does not seek to disrupt Valentino’s legacy but to move within it differently, reframing its codes through a more contemplative, emotionally resonant lens. The reference to Twombly is not decorative, but methodological, offering a way of thinking about fashion as an accumulation of memory, gesture, and meaning.

Valentino's Pre-Fall 2026 ultimately positions itself as a meditation on permanence, on how a house evolves not by abandoning its past but by learning how to inhabit it with new sensitivity. It is a restrained yet deeply articulate beginning, one that signals a future shaped by nuance, intellect, and a profound respect for history.