Oh, the bathroom stall—a claustrophobic wonderland. On any given night out, it evolves from its practical purposes into a haven for community. Connection is everywhere, from the tip of the tongue to a shared lip gloss, from a rusty key to an unzipped fly. So, where better for Alessandro Michele to stage Valentino’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection than within those porcelain confessionals? There, the absurdity of social existence is matched only by the extravagance of clothes draped in sequins and existential dread.

The set choice had little to do with the physicality of the Valentino-red tiled bathroom itself, and everything to do with its symbolism. Quoting Foucault—the academic known as an avid visitor of bathhouses that looked not so different from this set—Michele used the setting as a metaphor for intimacy. A bathroom stall is as private as it is public (the very idea of a public toilet is an oxymoron), and within it, the boundaries between contradictions blur. Can we ever shed the performance of social existence?

The extent of the collection’s queerness isn’t confined to Foucault’s quotes in the show notes. The choice of a bathroom setting, in itself, feels inherently queer. In an age where surveillance not only reaches bathrooms, but has stationed itself between the sinks, queer bodies are the subject of scrutiny. Again, the intimacy of these spaces is brought up to the stand. Gendered bodies are policed ones, denied the luxury of privacy, their existence cross-examined before the mirror. Michele speaks of privilege as much as he does of expression. Clothing becomes both a shield and a spectacle in a space where the boundaries of identity and privacy collapse. From the red stalls emerged a collection of people who were as individual as they were collective; eclectic strangers stepped out of stalls dressed in maximalist party wear.

Michele’s vision is immediately recognizable. His apologists have repeated the same mantra for several seasons: it’s not that his work repeats elements from his tenure at Gucci, but rather that he’s been doing Valentino all along. And, while historical revisionism is simply too much to ask for in the age of the Roman salute, a glance at Garavani’s archives indicates that Michele’s defenders may be onto something concrete. Michele pulls from a shared language of the house, but veers into hallucinatory glamour. Blue lace tops are paired with satin teal skirts, pink bustles, and red tights. Opulent sequined shirts are offset by beige knit lace boxers. Why isn’t this everyone’s go-to clubwear?

There were moments where the opulence veered into camp, like an enormous hyperrealistic sequined cat dress. Excess has always been part of Michele’s language. Backstage, he equated himself to Dionysus, the Greco-Roman god of induced frenzy. Divine comparisons are always hard to get on board with, but, if nothing else, Valentino this season felt euphoric. Michele is not incapable of restraint, however. The final look, a black velvet column gown, was sober and straightforward–until the model turned to re-enter a stall, revealing a massive heart-shaped cutout in the back. A dramatic exit with an open hole.

If we had a nickel.