The Roman luxury maison Maison Valentino has unveiled its Pre-Fall 2026 advertising campaign under the direction of Creative Director Alessandro Michele.
The campaign is set in the residence of modern art master Cy Twombly in Bassano in Teverina, central Italy—a place he considered a creative sanctuary for over three decades. Brand ambassador Sombr also appears in the campaign.
A Place Chosen by Twombly, Holding the Weight of Time
Twombly acquired the palazzo in 1975, following the advice of art collector Giorgio Franchetti. Thereafter, he retreated from the noise of the city and lived a restrained, almost ascetic life within its porous limestone walls, opening the space only to a close circle of friends and collaborators. Several of his most significant works quietly took shape here.
Today, the palazzo serves as the headquarters of the Iris Foundation, a trust established to promote cultural initiatives in the arts. Twombly’s presence remains embedded within the architecture itself, still perceptible to this day.
A Gaze That Extends from 1968
At the core of the campaign lies a historic visual deeply rooted in the maison’s legacy. In 1968, photographer Henry Clarke shot a white collection by Valentino Garavani for the U.S. edition of Vogue, staged in the Roman apartment shared by Twombly and his partner Tatiana Franchetti.
More than half a century later, the setting shifts to another of Twombly’s residences. The intention is not to recreate the original image, but rather to reawaken the sensibility that once flowed between the maison and the artist—now through a contemporary lens. The visual brings together both distance and continuity, weaving them into a single narrative gesture that feels distinctly Valentino.
From Stillness to Instability — Redefining Body and Space
In the 1968 imagery, figures dressed in white were composed within geometric spatial structures. Fashion aligned with architecture, reinforcing a sense of order and stability.
The Pre-Fall 2026 campaign proposes the opposite. Natural hair, elusive gazes, and shifting fabrics disrupt the space, while liberated color fractures its former unity. The body resists stillness—it moves through, disturbs, and reactivates its surroundings. No longer a figure placed within space, it becomes a presence that questions and unsettles the environment itself.
A Subject That No Longer Needs Explanation
The campaign video further expands this relationship, portraying body and space as a continuous interplay of presence, memory, and movement. Time unfolds at varying speeds, tracing multiple trajectories.
What emerges are subtle gestures—hesitation, deviation, pause. From these arises a quiet dissonance: the feeling that one’s movement does not fully align with oneself. Rather than resolving this gap, the dialogue embraces it. Identity is not reconstructed, but gently unraveled.
Freed from the need to explain itself, the subject moves beyond fixed definition, becoming a fluid space where multiple states coexist and shift.
Michele’s vision for Valentino has consistently centered on fashion as a space where past memory and present sensibility resonate with one another. Shot within Twombly’s palazzo, this campaign stands as one of the clearest expressions of that philosophy.
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