Make It Vegan: An Infinite Dizziness

In the Make It Vegan series, we select the most inspiring fashion shows of the season—this time, it’s Valentino SS 2025 at Paris Haute Couture Week—and take aesthetic inspiration to curate a selection of vegan items that fit the bill, both figuratively and literally.

Valentino Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2025

This was perhaps the most anticipated show of the entire season, marking Alessandro Michele’s first-ever couture presentation in his career. Appointed as head designer at Valentino back in April 2024, Michele has quickly familiarised himself with—and introduced his signature touch into—the lyrical and enchanted legacy of Pierpaolo Piccioli, as well as the sophisticated heritage of Valentino Garavani himself. Where there was beauty, it became vision; where there was fantasy, it became phantasmagoria.

Yet, looking at the couture collection, one couldn’t help but feel that Michele had merely been testing the waters with ready-to-wear before blowing the whole theatre wide open with couture. The collection, titled Vertigineux for Maison Valentino, was inspired by Umberto Eco’s 2009 book The Infinity of Lists. And a list it was—or more accurately, a carousel of 48 cabinets de curiosités, presented one closely after another, each look carrying an entirely autonomous story. In the background, a black screen with red lettering scrolled from right to left, providing a perfectly infinite cheat sheet for any journalist—if one could decipher it. Just to name a few: Tudor satin, mother-of-pearl embossing, crêpe marocain, Dionysus habotai prophecy, Marie Antoinette, organza, boning, Invisible Cities, damask crochet, obsession, floriography, Georgian era, Jan Vermeer, Gutenberg, mandarin fish, harlequin, Virginia Woolf, medieval mystery, Queen Victoria.

Naturally, signature Valentino artifacts were also included: the princess coat, trumpet sleeves with micro-pleating, ruffles finer than biscuit porcelain, bejewelled latticework embroidery, and of course—bows.

For a history nerd, this also looked like a parade of inspirations and aesthetic quotes from various timespaces of fashion history—from Baroque panniers and opulent decoration of fabrics, to Victorian crinolines that ensured every interested entity remained at extensive arm’s length, oriental robes popular in the 18th century, Edwardian subtlety and multi-tiered gowns, faint echoes of Chinese opera-inspired pieces, and of course, classic 20th-century colour and pattern blocking, complete with lavishly treated stockings.

This, along with the flashing strobe lights, left everyone—not just the photosensitive—genuinely dizzy, as already foreshadowed by the title. Ah, and the music—the eerie, powerful work of Brigitte Lesne, a virtuoso of medieval music. If one were to overhear it outside, they might have imagined something more along the lines of a church liturgy or a medieval-inspired occult ceremony. “It doesn’t aim to tame the chaos, rather to contemplate it,” read the show notes. That’s Michele for everybody.

If postmodernism, in all its fragmentation and arbitrary use of historical references, is a sign of our times, then Michele is undoubtedly its high priest. As dizzying as it was, there remained an invisible thread—Michele’s philosophy (for lack of a more accurate term)—that tied everything together, making these the most desired pieces of the season.

While we await the day when all of these pieces are offered in vegan alternatives to wool and silk, here’s our curated selection from our favourite vegan fashion brands that fit the bill—should one be inclined to turn heads. After all, party season is upon us.

You’re all welcome.

Explore our Directory for more leading womenswear vegan fashion brands committed to animal welfare, sustainability and innovation.