Can somewhere as seemingly inconsequential as an ice cream parlor serve as the backdrop to an extraordinary life? Alessandro Michele seems to think so.
In fact, he embraces the banality of an ice cream shop’s storefront as the setting for Valentino’s Fall 2025 campaign, enlisting a cadre of young and fabulous stars to imbue the pedestrian setting with a sense of awe, wonder, and—of course—undeniable style.
“Re-enchanting the everyday, trying to inhabit it poetically, is not an easy task,” the creative director explained in a press release. “An anomaly is needed, a disruption in the frantic rush to do. We need to slow down and stop. That’s why I imagined a static point of view that may scan the poetical density of what nestles in the ordinary. A fixed camera focused on life, as it happens. A door opens, a street, a bar. And then: ancient and minute gestures within mornings that seem to be all alike.”
Perhaps his choice of location comes as no surprise after models walked down a runway lined by makeshift toilet stalls for the house’s Paris Fashion Week show just last month. Through the intentional scenery, Michele asks a crucial question: If you can’t find beauty in the everyday, then where can you find it?
Amelia Gray is one of the anointed few leading this season’s Valentino campaign, alongside Yellowjackets star Sophie Thatcher, Italian actor Lorenzo Zurzolo, and up-and-coming models Kai Schreiber and Scarlett White.
In behind-the-scenes photos shared exclusively to Harper’s Bazaar, Gray—a longtime Valentino devotee—embodies the archetype of the so-called “lady in red.” Amid a world of quiet luxury and clean girl aesthetics, Gray dares to disrupt the ordinary with a monochromatic deluge of scarlet: a pussy-bow blouse with heart-shaped polka dots tucked into a peplum leather midi skirt, accentuated by ruby-red lace gloves and tights. Here, she embodies how the Valentino woman is one who lives life on her own terms—the kind of person who makes anything from a Valentino Garavani Viva Superstar bag to a bright-green yo-yo look like the coolest accessory.
As Michele succinctly put it: “The everyday is not a backdrop that animates only when the extraordinary steps in. Rather, it’s the secret architecture that supports our presence in the world: a frame of glows and joyful epiphanies enshrined in the little or nothing of our ordinariness.”
Watch the full campaign video below.
