VALENTINO Spring/Summer 2026 / SS26 at Paris Fashion Week entitled Fireflies
Letter from Alessandro michele for inspiration of VALENTINO SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026 :
On February 1, 1941, in dark age, when the fury of war sweeps across the land and the antiaircraft units tear the silence up the skies, a young student of the Faculty of Humanities in Bologna sends a letter to childhood friend. He tells him about the ever-changing gleam of desire erotic, playful, innocent that keeps on burning despite the unsettling shadows obscuring his present. Among other things, he writes: “the night I told you about, we saw an immense amount of fireflies, they made little woods of fire inside little woods of bushes and we envied them because they loved each other, because they longed for each other through amorous flights and lights”. This student is Pier Paolo Pasolini. The fireflies he evokes represent, in his eyes, the ability to resist the darkest night: erratic luminescences bursting with life, intermittent fragments of embodied poetry, glimmers so elusive to survive the darkness of the ruling fascism.
On February 1, 1975, exactly 34 years after that message of hope entrusted to the splendor of the fireflies, Pasolini publishes an article to reflect on the political situation and the devastating cultural standardization of the era. It’s true, he writes, the fascism of the 30s and 40s has been defeated. Yet, it has managed to rise again in a radically unprecedented and unpredictable way. The reference is to the conformism that was ravaging the values, the souls and the languages: a new night, so impenetrable to completely devour the differences and the luminous dances of the fireflies seeking love. It’s the definitive theorization on “the disappearance of the fireflies”.
The art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, however, doesn’t believe in such a prophecy. He shares the apprehension dripping from Pasolini’s words, but he says it’s impossible to surrender to the apocalyptic tone that establishes the triumph of darkness. There still are some luminous survivals, anachronisms and shining flickers that design spaces of possibilities. These sparks of light are very very feeble, of course. They are difficult to glimpse. “It takes almost five thousand fireflies to produce a light equal to that of a single candle” (G. Didi-Huberman). It takes an eye that is still able to imagine and desire. In this sense, the disappearance of the fireflies prophesied by Pasolini would just correspond to the incapacity of an atrophied gaze to read signs of hope in the dark. Fireflies are not dead. We have gone blind, too blind to see them. We can no longer “seek and recognize who and what, in the middle of hell, is not hell, and make it last, and give it space”. (1. Calvino).
We need to disarm the eyes and reawaken the gaze. It’s the only way to understand how the gloom of our present is actually woven with light swarms of fireflies: hints. of worlds to come, traces of a beauty that resists standardization, sensitive epiphanies able to reconnect us with the human. Fashion, in this sense, can become a precious ally. Its task is to illuminate what loves to hide, revealing shy signs of future. Its ability is to profane the existing, emanating glows of enchantment and radiant signs brimming with grace. These are fleeting sparks in the dark, constellations of fireflies that unveil gateways of possibilities and nourish imagination with political force.
Words by ALESSANDRO
In the core of Valentino Spring/Summer 2026 vision, Alessandro Michele evokes the enduring brilliance of Pasolini’s fireflies — fragile symbols of resistance, beauty, and human tenderness that shimmer even in times of darkness. Drawing from the poet’s wartime letters and the later lament of their disappearance, Michele transforms these luminous insects into a metaphor for creativity’s survival in a homogenized world. Where conformity once silenced difference, fashion now becomes an act of rebellion — an ethereal protest that insists on sensitivity, emotion, and freedom. The firefly, reborn in Valentino’s atelier, becomes a symbol of defiance and light — a reminder that even in the cultural nightfall of fast trends and digital overexposure, desire still burns, quietly but persistently.
Valentino SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026 collection extends this metaphor into a new form of romantic resistance. In a world obsessed with speed and sameness, Michele proposes slowness, individuality, and craft as radical gestures. The runway itself becomes a constellation — fabrics that shimmer like firefly wings, silhouettes that whisper of intimacy rather than spectacle, colors that pulse with life instead of noise. With sustainability now inseparable from elegance, Valentino reframes luxury as an ecosystem of care — for the planet, for heritage, for human connection. In this luminous narrative, Michele calls us to reawaken our gaze, to see again the “light swarms” around us, and to believe — fiercely, tenderly — in fashion’s power to keep the fireflies alive.
Choreographer by Alessandro Sciarroni, is an Italian artist active in the field of Performing Arts with several years of experience in visual arts and theater research. His work starts from a conceptual Duchamp- like matrix using a theatrical framework and they are featured in festivals, museums and unconventional spaces, in whole Europe, South and North America and Asia. In his creations he involves professionals from different disciplines and uses some techniques and experiences from dance, as well as circus or sports. His work tries to uncover obsessions, fears and fragilities of the act of performing, through the repetition of a practice to the limits of the physical endurance of the interpreters, looking at a different dimension of time, and to an empathic relationship between the audience and the performers. In 2019 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Dance by the Venice Biennial. Alessandro Sciarroni is associate artist of MARCHE TEATRO.
Artwork of the setting the show of Valentino SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026, NONOTAK is a creative duo founded by visual artist Noemi Schipfer and light & sound artist Takami Nakamoto that was conceived in 2012. Nonotak work with light & sound installations and audiovisual performance pieces to create ethereal, immersive and dreamlike environments which are built to envelope, challenge and stagger the viewer, capitalising on Nakamoto’s approach to space & sound and Schipfer’s experience with kinetic visual and minimal geometric illustrations. This results in a duo who creates pieces that put together light, sound and space in order to provide the audience a unique visual and sensitive experience. Nonotak’s aesthetic is inspired by minimal architecture and optical art.
All images Valentino SS26 / Spring/Summer 2026 by the brand.