Valentino Lunar New Year 2025 Ad Campaign

Review of Valentino Lunar New Year 2025 Ad Campaign Art Director Christopher Simmonds and Photographer Fish Zhang and models Sun Li and Jolin Tsai

Valentino embraces the romance of red with its Lunar New Year 2025 campaign, created in collaboration with art director Christopher Simmonds and photographer Fish Zhang.

Models Sun Li and Jolin Tsai bring a sophisticated yet almost playfully ostentatious energy to a range of looks from Alessandro Michele’s debut collection for the house. While these looks are all ones we’ve seen several times now, they point to a distinct sense of narrative when situated in a new visual context: an interior space illuminated with examples of Chinese craft – enamelware and ceramics, intricately carved wooden furniture – and lots of red, from the floor to the curtains to the wallpaper.

The images are finished off with the ivory borders that have already become a campaign signature for Michele’s Valentino, but this time with red instead of black.

We’re still getting the feel for Michele’s vision of Valentino beyond a design approach that is very reminiscent of his time at Gucci. This campaign doesn’t do much to further extend the emerging narrative, seeing as it combines a collection we’ve already seen on the runway and in multiple campaigns with the typical Lunar New Year trappings of Chinese craft heritage and the color red. It does, however, have the advantage of further introducing the house’s new direction to a wider East Asian market while pointing to new cultural narratives for the brand. Further solidifying the visual basis of the Alessandro Michele era, the campaign has us excited to see what’s next in this new chapter for Valentino.