Pre-fall visuals from Valentino offer nod to ‘OOTD’ culture

April 17, 2025

American model Amelia Gray Hamlin stars in the new Valentino campaign, shot by British photographer and director Glen Luchford. Image courtesy of Valentino

By Amirah Keaton

Italian fashion house Valentino is widening the bounds of personal style via a newly-released campaign.

Advertisements promoting the maison’s pre-fall 2025 collection invite audiences to stop and smell the flowers, tapping a cast of creatives to deliver the message. Shot by British photographer and director Glen Luchford, the central campaign film plays with point of view to reinforce the reminder, as newly-instated Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele continues to communicate his vision.

“We live in an era of violent uproar, of shouting images, of words chasing after other words without ever taking root,” said Mr. Michele, in a statement.

“Such overblown turmoil oversaturates our gaze, producing a solid crisis of perception,” Mr. Michele said. “From this comes the need for a policy of attention, an ethics for the gaze and the presence, capable of lingering upon the infinitely small, on seemingly insignificant gestures, on those everyday routines that connect us with the pattern of life.”

Still life in motion
Against a cultural backdrop of digital noise and constant acceleration, Valentino’s pre-fall campaign champions stillness.

Its visuals take shape through a series of vignettes that aim to reframe the ordinary. An open door, passing glances and a morning that unfolds without spectacle offer an antidote to overstimulation.

The film is set to the tune of “Imaginer l’Amour,” written and performed by French singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet.

Advertisements promote the maison’s pre-fall 2025 collection

The luxury brand’s latest project is captured in a manner that dances on the line of videos taken “OOTD”-style. Otherwise known as “outfit of the day” posts, social media users have popularized the term, labeling content that showcases personal style in everyday settings with the acronym.

A high-brow adaptation of the often self-shot Instagram and TikTok feed fillers would be befitting of the digitally-native and diverse ensemble: American actress Sophie Thatcher and American model Amelia Gray Hamlin star alongside others who help bring Valentino’s contemplative world and static camera work to life.

“Re-enchanting the everyday, trying to inhabit it poetically, is not an easy task,” Mr. Michele said, in a statement.

“An anomaly is needed, a disruption in the frantic rush to do,” he said. “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.”

Poetic pre-fall campaign
Launched April 16, the poetic campaign continues a longer arc of conceptual storytelling under Mr. Michele, whose affinity for romanticism and narrative detail has reshaped the identity of brands before.

At Italian fashion label Gucci, where he held the title of creative director from 2015 to 2022, the Italian fashion designer opted for dramatic flair while making layered references to art, literature and memory (see story).

Collage-style imagery showcases the pre-fall 2025 collection. Image courtesy of Valentino

A bold approach to visual storytelling (see story) is similarly taking shape at Valentino. For pre-fall, it unfolds as Mr. Michele requests a revival of attention to detail.

“The everyday is not a backdrop that animates only when the extraordinary steps in,” he said, in a statement.

“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.”

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Pre-fall visuals from Valentino offer nod to ‘OOTD’ culture

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