MILAN — Who’s she calling?
Dakota Johnson is seen busy on the phone as she fronts her first advertising campaign for Valentino, which will be released Thursday.
There’s a good chance Johnson is talking to creative director Alessandro Michele, who wanted his longtime friend and supporter since his Gucci era to follow him to Valentino. The Roman house named the Hollywood actress a global brand ambassador last month.
“Nothing brings me more joy than collaborating with people I love, admire and respect,” Johnson told WWD. “I am so grateful and happy to join the Valentino family. Alessandro is one of the most inspiring people I know, and I’m honored to be with him again.”
The Valentino cruise 2026 ad campaign.
Courtesy of Valentino
In the images promoting the brand’s cruise 2026 collection and photographed by Marili Andre, Johnson is not alone. She is joined by a cast that includes legendary model and actress Marisa Berenson; Canadian singer and dancer Tate McRae; British singer, songwriter and record producer Dev Hynes; German artist Anne Imhof, and American ballet dancer Devon Teuscher, in addition to several models.
The cast is portrayed in different scenes in rich interiors, ranging from cuddling on a bed to lounging on the floor or on a sofa, in a suspended time before going to sleep, as the name of the campaign, “Nocturne,” suggests.
The Valentino cruise 2026 ad campaign.
Courtesy of Valentino
“There is a moment, just before the night comes, when conscience prepares to surrender,” Michele said in a statement. “It is an in-between time, where the borders of sleep and wake become porous: things get soft, words lose weight, light stops judging. On such a suspended threshold, everything yields to a slow abandonment. The ‘Nocturne’ ad campaign decides to inhabit that threshold.”
The designer specified the scenes are set in a hotel, a place he described as a “liminal space par excellence, where intimacy and anonymity coexist and transience turns into a form of permanence.”
The Valentino cruise 2026 ad campaign.
Courtesy of Valentino
“Each room is a fragment of universe, populated by singular existences. Lives barely touching one another, yet taking part in a shared ritual: the gesture of giving oneself over to sleep, of loosening the tensions of the day, of embracing the quiet hush as a temporary shelter from the world outside,” Michele said. “In this pervasive repetition, in this simultaneity of isolated gestures, a collective intimacy gently comes to the surface. For a moment, what is most private transfigures into a shared experience.”
In Michele’s vision, the hotel becomes a metaphor for the contemporary condition, “a place of proximity without contact, where parallel solitudes breathe within the same time and thoughts intertwine through thin walls.”
The Valentino cruise 2026 ad campaign.
Courtesy of Valentino
The campaign reprises and expands the concept of the collection’s look book images unveiled earlier this year, which saw Michele’s tribe pictured on a bed, mainly sleeping but also occasionally playing the guitar, doing a crossword puzzle, taking selfies or having a snack.
The Valentino cruise 2026 ad campaign.
Courtesy of Valentino
The nighttime concept is amplified in the moody video rounding out the campaign. Directed by Renell Medrano, it shows the cast walking the hallways of the hotel, stepping into rooms, reading a book or playing cards — all to the sound of “Nocturne In E Flat” by Frederic Chopin, here performed by Angus Pendergast. Johnson is seen zipping up her Valentino dress, before laying on the floor to talk on the phone.
In her new role of brand ambassador for Valentino, the actress joins the likes of Clairo, Sophie Thatcher, Freen Sarocha, Jeff Satur, Lim Yoona and Colman Domingo. The latter has added to his duties as global ambassador of the fashion house and has recently become global brand ambassador for Valentino Beauty‘s fragrance lines.
