How Valentino built emotional capital through a lantern fair

While many brands still wrestle with “how to tell the Chinese story,” Valentino has taken a decisive step forward: rather than speaking for itself, it immersed in the cultural rhythm of China through a Chinese New Year lantern fair, co-creating new expressions with the country’s temporal and cultural threads. Lantern fairs have a tradition stretching back millennia. As early as the Han dynasty, lighting lamps was part of religious ritual; by the Tang and Song dynasties, lanterns had moved beyond temples into the streets, becoming a communal symbol of banishing darkness, welcoming light, and celebrating reunion during the New Year. To welcome Chinese New Year 2026, Valentino chose Shanghai — a city steeped in history — as the stage to illuminate its contemporary lantern fair, “Illuminate Your Dream,” at the 141-year-old Mazu temple. Using light and shadow as its medium, the brand both continues and reinterprets this ancient ritual, allowing it to come alive at the intersection of heritage architecture, contemporary art, and immersive experience. The significance of the festival goes far beyond a visual spectacle or sensory delight. It achieves a cultural dialogue that requires no translation. Without explanation, without instruction, it simply resonates. Valentino uses light as its language, transforming Chinese New Year blessings into a coherent spatial narrative, offering the industry a deeper, more sophisticated model for seasonal brand storytelling. Tianhou Palace: A century of resonant storytelling Truly powerful cultural collaboration is never a superficial borrowing of history; it is allowing history itself to become the protagonist of the narrative—empowering the brand and giving it a voice without a single word. For its lantern fair, Valentino chose the Tianhou Palace on the banks of Suzhou Creek in Jing’an, Shanghai—a site dating back to 1884. This choice embodies that philosophy. It is not merely about selecting a “historic building”, but about engaging with the life trajectory of the structure itself, which resonates profoundly with the core values sustaining a luxury brand: resilience, adaptability, and enduring legacy. Since its founding, the Tianhou Palace has stood as a spiritual landmark facing the sea, serving dual purposes of ritual and community exchange. Its century-long history reads like a condensed epic of the city: it has functioned as a school, an office building, a refuge for displaced populations, constantly adapting to shifting times, recording both upheaval and inclusivity. At one point, it was meticulously dismantled and stored to make way for urban development, nearly vanishing from public memory. Only in recent years has it been systematically reconstructed on its original site, returning as a cultural landmark. This is a building reborn, and a testament to the vitality of culture itself. Its resilience — preserving essence through change — resonates with the spirit of Shanghai and aligns seamlessly with the philosophy of luxury brands that have been refined over time. Thus, when visitors enter, they do not simply experience a scene staged by the brand. Instead, they feel the historical energy of the building subtly intertwining with Valentino’s narrative. There is no need for Valentino to proclaim its “understanding of China”; the century-spanning existence and revival of the Tianhou Palace itself provides the most authentic, credible context for the brand’s expression. In engaging with history in this way, audiences naturally absorb and affirm the brand’s commitment to long-term vision and cultural integrity. Co-creating with culture, not translating it If Tianhou Palace lends the brand’s Chinese New Year narrative a sense of temporal and cultural depth, then "Illuminate Your Dream" transforms that narrative into a tangible, participatory contemporary art experience. The fair was curated by X Zhu-Nowell, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, with multiple local Chinese artists contributing, translating their own artistic languages into light and shadow installations, each beam carrying visions and wishes for the future. This was not merely a presentation of the brand’s concept, but a reciprocal act of creative collaboration between the brand and the artists. On-site, seven light and shadow installations by these artists exemplify a deep local reinterpretation rather than a literal execution of a brand brief. Drawing inspiration from Chinese traditional crafts and philosophy, the works respond to the brand’s DNA while offering a contemporary reinterpretation of Eastern aesthetics. Wentao Li employs the national intangible heritage craft of Foshan lanterns to create “Leaping into the Dream”, a cloud-stepping horse, coinciding with the Chinese zodiac Year of the Horse, symbolizing auspiciousness and forward momentum. The intricate, handcrafted texture resonates subtly with Valentino’s celebrated spirit of craftsmanship. Zhenchen Liu’s “Panacea - Lanterns Guiding Dreams” transforms the healing imagery of medicinal plants into a series of illuminated lantern installations, where light flows through the vessels like the veins of plants, creating a serene, poetic atmosphere in dialogue with the brand’s sensibilities. Xu Mingyu’s “Parallel Forest” explores the reintegration of traditional bamboo-weaving craftsmanship — an intangible cultural heritage — into contemporary spatial contexts. Using bamboo as its primary material, the work combines hand-weaving techniques while preserving the essence of the craft. Through modular design, it redefines bamboo weaving with a new structural logic and a minimalist aesthetic. Balancing sustainability with adaptability, the project allows traditional craftsmanship to be revitalized through contemporary design and seamlessly integrated into modern life. Rooted in traditional Chinese craft aesthetics and philosophy, these works grow into fully contemporary and uniquely branded artistic expressions. They go beyond a display of “Chinese elements,” embodying a deep resonance and co-creation between the brand’s spirit and local culture. Here, Valentino is no longer just a narrator of Chinese culture; it evolves into an active participant and co-creator in its dynamic contemporary journey. Immersive lanterns, fresh New Year moments As experience becomes the ultimate luxury of our time, Valentino’s “Illuminate Your Dream” transcends a mere visual spectacle, evolving into a fully immersive journey — one that can be explored, savored, and felt. Its purpose is clear: to make the brand’s wishes tangibly felt, transforming them into cherished memories that audiences are eager to share. The event was launched with a “celebrity ignition + reservation” model. On January 16, brand ambassadors Sun Li, Yang Zi, and Lareina Song, along with celebrity guests such as Laurinda Ho , Shawn Dou, and Stephen Fung, gathered at Tianhou Palace to jointly light up the Lantern Fair, instantly sparking a buzz on social media. Meanwhile, starting January 14, the public could reserve visits for January 17–18 via Valentino’s official mini-program — slots were fully booked even before the event opened, underscoring the festival’s high demand and influence. Harnessing this buzz and anticipation, Valentino transformed Tianhou Palace into a three-dimensional, dynamic theater of immersive experiences. Visitors were enveloped on multiple levels: visually, by the light installations co-created with artists; tactilely and gastronomically, through traditional activities like sugar painting, paper-cutting, pitch-pot games, and goldfish scooping, accompanied by treats such as roasted chestnuts and candied hawthorns; and atmospherically, with the second-floor space serving as a tea house by day and a cozy bar by night, allowing guests to quietly savor the palace’s interplay of light and time. Traditional Chinese New Year rituals were distilled and reimagined into a series of refined, playful, and interactive moments. The warmth of families sharing sugar paintings and the laughter of friends competing in pitch-pot subtly forged an emotional connection with Valentino. Through this, the brand elevated itself as a creator of high-quality festive experiences, transforming the Chinese New Year into an enduring emotional asset in the minds of its audience. In an era marked by market volatility and discerning consumers, Valentino leveraged a high-investment, non-directly commercial cultural initiative to craft a uniquely differentiated brand identity through compelling storytelling and tangible, immersive experiences. This was more than a standalone marketing act — it was a strategic response to the mood of the times: when the industry hesitated, the brand used light as a medium to convey optimism, warmth, and hope, aligning itself with a resilient, forward-looking vision. Moreover, it redefined the brand’s role. By activating Tianhou Palace — a cultural landmark — Valentino transcended conventional commercial activity, becoming a custodian and co-creator of the city’s cultural memory, establishing a contemporary brand image that balances responsibility with warmth. Finally, it hit the core of the experience economy — offering authentic, human connections. In a world where digital interactions grow increasingly virtual, the brand carefully curated real, touchable, shareable experiences—sugar painting, tossing pots, tea rooms—that delivered the most scarce commodity of all: vivid, warm, and memorable moments. In doing so, it transcended the traditional material logic of luxury, transforming experience into irreplaceable emotional and relational capital. The ultimate value of this lantern fair lies in its systematic construction of a threefold brand fortress—cultural depth, social responsibility, and immersive experience. It sends a clear signal to the industry: in times of market flux, the greatest risk is not investment but mediocrity and homogeneity; the surest defense is authentic co-creation and distinctive creativity, building a universe that belongs entirely to the brand. This was not merely a marketing event; it was a live demonstration of brand power. It proved that the core capability of a top-tier brand lies in deeply understanding the spirit of the times, sincerely responding to social and cultural concerns, and acting to shape contemporary culture. Through this initiative, Valentino achieved a high-level reinvention of its brand role and value, setting a strategically significant example for the industry.

Sectors

Insights

Company

How Valentino built emotional capital through a lantern fair