Halloween, marked on Oct. 31, may be over but lovers of the holiday can embrace spooky season all year long thanks to Maison Valentino. The luxury Italian maison along with Tor Publishing Group and Nightfire teamed up with Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss’ online book club Belletrist to unveil a tailor-made gift box housing three unpublished horror novels. They are Johnny Compton’s The Sprite House, Sister, Maiden, Monster written by Lucy A. Snyder, and Leopoldo Gout’s Piñata.
The Halloween-themed box is part of the label’s ever-evolving Valentino Narratives project, an initiative, which is the first text-only ad campaign in the fashion industry, that seeks to celebrate the art of literature. It is the second in a series of literary boxes produced by Valentino and its publishing partners— Earlier this year, Valentino created its first box with forthcoming works by Penguin Books, and now continues the seasonal story with Nightfire.
A literary mood has long pervaded Valentino’s collections and campaigns. On World Poetry Day in March, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s fashion house invited 17 of the world’s most celebrated authors, including Leïla Slimani, Michael Cunningham, and Murathan Mungan, among others to submit an original piece of writing, which was laid out into colorful text-only campaign images.
Other projects have included Valentino On Love, featuring contributions from Mustafa The Poet, Greta Bellamacina, and Yrsa Daley-Ward; a scholarship for new writers in collaboration with novelist Tomi Adeyemi; and a 2020 campaign by photographer Liz Johnson Artur, accompanied by original words from Bernardine Evaristo, the Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other.
