For Fall 2025, Valentino Garavani adds the DeVain to its line-up as a soft clutch designed by Alessandro Michele. The bag sits within the house’s Vain family, introduced within a broader creative conversation shaped by visual interpretation.
The name DeVain plays on a word game around feeling divine in a self-aware way, a reference Michele connects to a Nineties sensibility. That thinking shows up in the bag’s focus on texture and finish, with materials doing most of the work throughout the collection. Alongside the launch of the bag, the luxury brand presents a digital creative project developed in collaboration with nine international artists. Released in two chapters, the project places the DeVain at the centre of a series of experimental visual narratives, using digital imagery as a medium for artistic interpretation.
The first chapter features works by Thomas Albdorf, Enter The Void, Paul Octavious, Albert Planella, and Tina Tona. Albdorf’s contribution explores mirrored surfaces and repetition through studio-based video compositions. Enter The Void constructs a surreal environment set within an imagined underwater desert hotel, populated by floating forms and objects. Octavious references classical portraiture, embedding the DeVain within animated compositions inspired by 16th-century art. Planella adopts a cinematic language, presenting the bag as a shifting element within dreamlike imagery. Tina Tona combines multimedia collage and digital animation, revealing the DeVain through layered, rhythm-driven compositions.
The second chapter introduces Animus Pax, Annie Collinge, Total Emotional Awareness, and Z_Captures. Animus Pax presents a series of stop-motion films that reveal the bag frame by frame, drawing attention to texture and surface. Collinge constructs playful tableaux using real objects and cut-out silhouettes. Total Emotional Awareness builds surreal visual environments shaped by expanding forms and pop imagery. Z_Captures places the DeVain alongside everyday pop objects, creating striking visual contrasts through scale and composition.
Across both chapters, the digital creative project presents the DeVain through a range of visual languages, positioning the bag as a central element within a broader exploration of contemporary creativity and digital expression.
