Review of Valentino Garavani Cruise 2026 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Alessandro Michele & Director Renell Medranoof with Photographer Marili Andre with Art Director Christopher Simmonds
Unfolding like a cinematic meditation on the threshold between waking and dreaming, Valentino Garavani’s Cruise 2026 campaign, Nocturne, directed by Alessandro Michele, drifts through the fragile hour before nightfall, where consciousness softens, glamour turns introspective, and beauty becomes a quiet act of surrender. Photographed with painterly precision, the film stars an eclectic ensemble: Marisa Berenson, Dakota Johnson, Dev Hynes, Anne Imhof, Tate McRae, and Devon Teuscher, who blur the lines between performance and reverie. The campaign’s concept, rooted in Freud’s “moment before sleep,” situates Valentino in a place of quiet introspection. After seasons of theatrical expression, Nocturne feels like a poetic pause and refinement. It’s Valentino leaning into stillness to rediscover its pulse.
The imagery inhabits the surreal intimacy of a hotel at twilight, that liminal space where solitude and proximity intertwine. Rooms glow in faded rose, olive, and marine tones; mirrors multiply glances that never meet. Each figure is suspended in its own unspoken narrative. Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat breathes through the sequence like a pulse, synchronizing isolated gestures into something collectively tender. The styling oscillates between restraint and ornament: fluid silks, feathered cuffs, embroidered satins, all carrying Valentino’s signature tension between sacred elegance and sensual disarray. Every tableau feels meticulously staged yet emotionally porous, a dream you can’t fully enter but also can’t look away from.
What distinguishes Nocturne is its courage to dwell in ambiguity. It resists spectacle in favor of atmosphere, creating a campaign that whispers rather than announces. The pacing, slow, deliberate, and hypnotic, invites viewers into contemplation, not consumption. Its strength lies in tone and texture: Piccioli’s romanticism, recalibrated through emotional quietude. If there’s a fragility here, it’s in the campaign’s distance. Its intellectualism risks detachment from the immediacy of fashion’s more visceral thrills, yet perhaps that’s precisely the point. In a world obsessed with clarity, Valentino offers an ode to opacity; a reminder that mystery, too, can be modern. Nocturne doesn’t sell the dream; it lingers on the moment just before it begins.
Valentino Creative Director | Alessandro Michele
Creative Director | Renell Medrano
Art Director | Christopher Simmonds
Photographer | Marili Andre
Talents | Marisa Berenson, Dev Hynes, Anne Imhof, Dakota Johnson, Tate McRae, Devon Teuscher, Aimee, Isabella, Edna, Weiyi, Harry, & Bukwop
Stylist | Jonathan Kaye
Hair | Esther Langham
Makeup | Yadim Carranza
Manicurist | Lauren Michelle Pires
Set Designer | Victoria Salomoni
Choreographer | Joe Grey Adams
Music | Nocturne In E Flat
Performed by Angus Pendergast
Composed by Frederic Chopin
Taken from the album ‘Classical Classics – Piano
Edition’ ℗ & ©2023, Ninja Tune Production Music