Valentino’s Garavani Devain Bag Got the Surrealist Treatment
A global roster of artists reinterprets the bag through their own experimental lens, with AI-driven designs.
Maison Valentino is pushing its “fashion is art” ethos into the digital realm with a new creative showcase devoted to the Valentino Garavani DeVain bag. The House has enlisted nine international artists to reinterpret the piece through experimental digital mediums in a series of works that feel museum-ready, just rewritten for the screen.
The DeVain steps in as the protagonist across nine distinct visual narratives, each reimagined through experimental digital mediums. The first chapter introduces five of the nine collaborators: Thomas Albdorf, Enter The Void, Paul Octavious, Albert Planella and Tina Tona. The remaining talents will be revealed in early December, adding a welcome layer of intrigue to the unfolding story.
Each creator approaches the bag as both subject and portal, translating its shape and symbolism into singular artistic languages. Thomas Albdorf presents a series of studio-led videos where the DeVain is reflected across mirrored planes, multiplying and mutating in a space between reality and the illusion. Enter The Void uses AI to render a surreal underwater–desert hybrid hotel inhabited by floating fish and floating bags in a wonderfully eccentric dreamscape.
Paul Octavious turns to classical portraiture, embedding the DeVain within animated digital compositions inspired by 16th-century art. Blending these Renaissance influences with contemporary digital craft through AI, Octavious transforms static imagery into an immersive experience, inviting viewers into a world where you almost forget you’re looking at a handbag.
Albert Planella also leans into AI, merging it with cinematic language to create a vision suspended between clarity and dream. His interpretation treats the bag as a metamorphic object, shifting form in a way that feels almost poetic. Meanwhile, Tina Tona layers multimedia collage with animation, crafting dynamic, multidimensional compositions that reveal the DeVain through both precision and chaos.
Together, these works create a kaleidoscopic portrait of an object that exists somewhere between accessory and artwork. The project extends Maison Valentino’s ongoing exploration of the human–digital dialogue, a reminder that in an age shaped by AI, technology can be a powerful collaborator rather than a creative replacement.
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