Valentino's Cruise Holiday 2027 Campaign Shows the Morning After a Party, With Freen Sarocha

Valentino released its Cruise Holiday 2027 advertising campaign on November 13, and it is set at the end of a party rather than in the middle of one. Valentino Japan's release describes shattered glasses, a chandelier on the floor and a room strewn with things, with the guests still in it: some sunk deep into chairs, some lying on the floor, one young woman putting her shoes back on. The Thai actor Freen Sarocha, a Valentino ambassador, appears alongside models wearing the latest looks from the Cruise 2027 collection.

Valentino

The text that comes with the pictures is signed simply Alessandro, as in Alessandro Michele, Valentino's creative director, and it reads more like an essay than a product note. Michele writes that the idea started from what looked like a simple intuition, to tell the story of what is left once a party is over, and that the pictures show a kind of awakening: the excitement has gone, a slight tiredness and a more unguarded beauty remain, and the climax has already passed by the time the viewer arrives.

Valentino

He then makes the party a metaphor for fashion itself. An industry built on being exceptional, exclusive and spectacular, he writes, is now being pushed to redefine its language, its values and its relationship with society, and the pictures suggest how an order that looks unshakeable can suddenly lose its balance. He cites Walter Benjamin's idea of the dialectical image, where the past and the present meet and show relationships that weren't visible before, and says that events outside the imaginary room have given the images unexpected, even unsettling associations, which puts the question of responsibility back to the people who made them.

Valentino

Valentino's release doesn't say what those events were, and it doesn't name the photographer or list the pieces and prices in the pictures. Among them: a long tiger-striped skirt, a pale pink satin top worn with ripped jeans, a green cap, a T-shirt printed Villain Tee, and the house's studded bags.

Valentino

Our read

Holiday campaigns usually sell the party. Michele's sells the hangover, and then explains why at length, which is a risk: an essay about fashion losing its grip on exclusivity sits oddly on pictures whose job is to sell bags at Christmas. But it's consistent with the Michele who staged Valentino's Spring 2027 show in a Paris library, and it's more interesting than another tree and a stack of gift boxes. The casting is the other choice worth noting: an Asian star fronts the holiday campaign in the same week that Valentino named Rosy Zhao a global brand ambassador. What Valentino hasn't said is which events changed how Michele sees his own pictures.