Point Taken
Review of Valentino Garavani Rockstud Pre-Fall 2026 Ad Campaign by Alessandro Michele with Ezra Petronio & Lana Petrusevych with Photographer Johnny Dufort with model Libby Taverner
Few accessories in fashion have managed the balancing act of ubiquity and desirability quite like the Valentino Garavani Rockstud. First introduced on the runway in Fall 2010, the shoe has spent over a decade quietly proving that sometimes the loudest statement is the one sharpened into permanence. For Valentino Pre-Fall 2026, Creative Director Alessandro Michele revisits the House icon with a wink rather than a rewrite, while art directors Ezra Petronio and Lana Petrusevych frame its return through a distinctly Roman lens—one that feels less postcard fantasy and more quiet possession. Valentino isn’t merely visiting Rome here; it is gently reminding us that it belongs to its mythology.
Photographed by Johnny Dufort against the theatrical splendor of the Eternal City’s fountains and marble statuary, the campaign starring Libby Taverner feels steeped in the kind of decadence only Rome can wear convincingly. A fur coat slips against ancient stone, lace brushes sculptural surfaces, sky-blue and emerald Rockstud heels punctuate centuries-old architecture with gleeful irreverence. Petronio and Petrusevych wisely resist turning Rome into spectacle. Instead, they treat it as atmosphere—a living extension of Valentino’s world, where grandeur is inherited rather than announced.
The imagery exists somewhere between Fellini fantasy and an overlong Roman afternoon after too much prosecco and too little concern for propriety. Taverner reclines rather than poses, sprawls rather than performs. Styled by Suzanne Koller, the campaign leans beautifully into Michele’s fascination with contradiction: aristocratic yet unruly, sensual yet severe, polished yet knowingly imperfect. If Valentino once whispered elegance, Michele—with Petronio and Petrusevych as co-conspirators—occasionally prefers elegance that smirks.
And then there are the shoes themselves—the true protagonists. The Rockstud’s familiar cage silhouette is sharpened through elongated pointy toes and platinum finishes, bringing newfound precision to a design long celebrated for attitude. Available in soaring 100mm or grounded 40mm iterations, and rendered in hues spanning elegant neutrals to vivid greens and icy blues, the collection wisely avoids nostalgia. Instead, it reframes an icon through contemporary appetite: recognizable, certainly, but restless enough to evolve.
What resonates most is the campaign’s confidence—not only in the Rockstud, but in Valentino’s relationship with Rome itself. In an era where luxury often borrows locations for atmosphere, Valentino and Michele make the city feel like birthright. The cleverness lies in the restraint: there is no need to oversell beauty when history is already doing some of the talking.
After all, true icons rarely shout. Much like Rome itself, they simply endure—beautifully, a little dramatically, and entirely on their own terms.
This gives you a stronger fashion-business read: Michele + Petronio/Petrusevych aren’t just selling a shoe, they are subtly reclaiming Roman cultural ownership for the House.
Valentino Creative Director | Alessandro Michele
Creative Directors | Ezra Petronio & Lana Petrusevych
Photographer | Johnny Dufort
Videographer | Shayne Laverdiere
Model | Libby Taverner
Stylist | Suzanne Koller
Hair | Esther Langham
Makeup | Daniel Sällström
Music | Les Filles Désir