Nine international artists have created their own digital renditions of Valentino’s DeVain clutch handbag, designed by the luxury label’s creative director Alessandro Michele and first introduced with the pre-Fall 2025 collection. The DeVain features in an experimental visual story, a digital project exclusively created by the artists for this key handbag.

The DeVain becomes the central character in nine visual stories, and a starting point for a reflection on contemporary creativity, reimagined through the digital medium as a form of artistic expression. The artworks, created by talents from different disciplines, each with their own individual insight, translate into a multifaceted, contemporary visual project.

The first chapter is the fruit of the work of five artists: Thomas Albdorf, Enter the Void, Paul Octavious, Albert Planella and Tina Tona. The four other artists’ creations will be unveiled in early December. Each artist has interpreted the DeVain as a symbol of creative freedom and individuality, blending experimentation and imagination into a unique visual narrative.

Albdorf has created several studio-based video clips in which the handbag is reflected on mirrored surfaces. Through the interplay of symmetry and texture, he has developed sculptural compositions in which the handbag multiplies and transforms. Enter the Void has used AI to build a dreamlike, surreal world, a hotel in an underwater desert inhabited by fish and handbags, where the perceptions of space and time dissolve. Octavious has created his own take on classic portraiture, incorporating the DeVain into animated, AI-based digital compositions inspired by 16th century art. Tona has combined multimedia collage and digital animation into dynamic, vibrant compositions, showing the bag from multiple perspectives in a mix of chaos and precision, colour and rhythm. Planella has combined AI and cinematography to tell a tale suspended between awareness and dreaming.

The DeVain is available from mid-November in 27 variants: from monochrome versions in Nappa or metallic Nappa to denim, crochet raffia and shearling versions embellished with colourful crystals. Precious skins, thread and bead embroideries, and combinations of floral garlands and velvet are used to create other distinctive versions.

Each clutch also features a leather tag that can be personalised with the client’s initials. This personalisation service, which turns the clutch into an expression of individual style, is available at select Valentino boutiques worldwide and on Valentino.com.

With Ansa