The former Gucci designer Alessandro Michele has been named the new creative director at Valentino, following the sudden departure last week of Pierpaolo Piccioli after 25 years.

The Paris spring couture shows are in full swing.

Valentino took a contemporary stride down memory lane this Sunday, returning to Les Beaux-Arts, the prestigious art school where founder Valentino Garavani once studied.

The experimentalism and audacity of 1980s club kids inspired Valentino in one of the last high-octane shows of this Paris Fashion Week couture season.

Valentino’s fashion show in Paris saw black cars snared for blocks dropping off battalions of celebrities who, amid the commotion, just couldn’t find the entrance.

It was “la Vie en Rose” for Valentino, who headlined Sunday’s segment of Paris Fashion Week with a daring co-ed pink collection — as VIP guests including Lewis Hamilton and Zendaya had to negotiate arrivals during a car-free day in the capital’s center.

It was a breath of fresh air in Paris, as designer Pierpaolo Piccioli rid himself of any constraints on race, age and weight Wednesday to produce a joyful, inclusive and long-awaited moment of couture.

Valentino gave its pared down fashion audience a taste of real Parisian life on Friday.

MILAN – Fashion is off the hamster wheel, taking a deep breath that is allowing some freshness to seep into the once relentless cycle. “It is so weird thinking about fashion, and the kind of hamster wheel of fashion, and how we never had a break and always complained about it,’’ Marc Jacobs said during a Milan Fashion Week video chat with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons post-digital show. Milan Fashion Week of mostly womenswear previews for next fall and winter wrapped a nearly all-digital edition on Monday. Only one designer — Daniel Del Core, marking his brand's debut — held a live runway show for a small number of guests. Milan designer Francesca Liberatore had planned an extravagant show in a Milan theater with holographic effects, but decided against it in solidarity with theater creatives who can't occupy that space.

MILAN – It’s been a season of disruption at Milan Fashion Week. Here are highlights from Sunday, the last day of Milan Fashion Week of mostly womenswear previews for Spring-Summer 2021:VALENTINO’S PICCOLI MAKES MILAN FASHION PREMIEREThe silver lining of the virus-induced travel difficulties that kept many people from traveling to Milan Fashion Week from abroad: They also kept Rome-based Valentino from making the trans-alpine trip to the fashion house’s usual show venue in Paris. For his first-ever Milan show, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli chose a disused foundry as the backdrop for the lush, romantic collection in the fashion language of lattice and lace; floral detailing and bold prints; ruffles and fringe. All of the key elements, florals, lace, lattice, also were reinterpreted also for men: a floral hoodie, a lace short and top set, a ruffle-front shirt over shorts. In Milan, “the signs and codes of Valentino today are being re-signified,” the house said in press notes.

NEW YORK – The Council of Fashion Designers of America gave its top fashion awards on Monday to Gabriela Hearst for womenswear and Kerby Jean-Raymond for menswear. The two designers led a group of winners that the CFDA said was the most diverse in the 39-year history of the awards. The winners also included Telfar Clemens, who won the accessories award, and Christopher John Rogers, who won for American emerging designer. The award for international women's designer went to Pierpaolo Piccioli for Valentino. The international men's designer award went to Kim Jones for Dior.