Valentino Garavani Vain Bag Ad Campaign

Review of Valentino ‘Garavani Vain’ Ad Campaign by Creative Director Alessandro Michele and Photographer Sharna Osborne

By Sonya Moore, Logan Lloyd, & Léa Rabaron

Alessandro Michele continues to reshape Valentino’s visual and emotional language with the new Valentino Garavani Vain Bag campaign—the second chapter in his evolving accessories storytelling. Building on the recent launch of the Nellcôte bag, the campaign deepens dialogue with Valentino’s legacy of elegance while signaling a bolder shift toward suggestion, ambiguity, and cinematic intimacy.

Shot by Sharna Osborne, the imagery’s grainy textures and muted tones reject hyper-real polish, inviting viewers into a tactile world of desire and restraint and positioning both bag and brand within an increasingly nuanced conversation about luxury and the gaze. “By recontextualizing the Vain Bag as both a sensual object and a silent observer, Valentino reasserts its relevance not through spectacle but through sensitivity,” added Sonya Moore during a round-table debrief among The Impression’s editorial staff.

The setting—dim, voyeuristic, and reminiscent of 1970s European cinema—casts models Isabella Pascucci and Vera Lemelehes between intimacy and distance, their timeless sensuality deliberately obscured. The spareness of the scene—a lone metal chair, an unmade bed—heightens the tension between concealment and exposure. As Logan Lloyd asked, “whether the Vain Bag is an object of desire or a vessel that channels and shapes it,” the campaign blurs the line between object and agent. Frame after frame, blurred focus resists clarity even as compositions suggest intimacy; bodies are present yet never fully revealed, garments hint at seduction, but the lens withholds full access. Through this push-and-pull, the campaign probes timely questions about control, consent, and the framing of femininity in the luxury space.

Strategically, Michele positions Valentino for an emotionally literate generation attuned to nuance, tactility, and narrative over mere display. “For this next chapter, Alessandro Michele taps into a growing trend across fashion, film, and social media: a return to visual codes that favor mood and memory over perfection,” remarked Moore. By aligning Valentino with a cultural moment in which Gen Z and Millennial audiences embrace slow luxury and atmospheric storytelling, the campaign subtly reframes the house’s voice.

Ultimately, the Vain campaign is less about selling a single bag than about constructing a world where desire unfolds gradually and beauty is mediated rather than served wholesale. “In this sense, Vain isn’t just a campaign—it’s a provocation, and a quietly radical statement about the power of not being fully seen,” added Léa Rabaron. In an age of algorithm-driven spectacle, Michele’s Valentino dares to feel—privileging atmosphere, ambiguity, and emotional depth. It is a slow burn and a strategic one, placing the house at the leading edge of a more reflective, tactile vision of contemporary luxury.