Poolside Luxury 2026: Valentino, Dolce&Gabbana & Versace
Three Italian houses, three completely different ideas about what belongs by the water. Valentino keeps its restraint even at its most relaxed — raffia and VLogo hardware, but nothing shouts. Dolce&Gabbana goes the other direction on principle, treating a slide as an opportunity rather than an afterthought, braided raffia and logo work doing exactly what they’re built to do. Versace doesn’t pretend the pool is a quiet place — Medusa hardware and rubber built for maximum presence, not minimum effort. None of the three is wrong about this. They’re just answering a different brief.
Valentino: Raffia, Rockstud and Restraint
Valentino’s summer footwear works from the same instinct that runs through the rest of the house — control the volume, let the material do the talking. Vlogo Signature Raffia Slingback Pump is the clearest case: raffia, a material that could easily read as casual, paired with a slingback construction precise enough to keep it dressed. It’s a shoe that works from a boat lunch straight into evening without changing anything about itself.
Rockstud Wedge Sandals bring the house’s most recognizable hardware into a wedge silhouette built for actual walking on uneven ground — cobblestones, decking, sand that isn’t quite flat. The studs stay disciplined rather than decorative, spaced with the same precision Valentino applies everywhere else. VLogo Signature Slide Sandals close the range at its most relaxed: a slide built for the fifteen minutes between the pool and lunch, with just enough branding to read as Valentino without trying. Rockstud Mules split the difference between the slide and the wedge — flat enough for comfort, structured enough that they don’t disappear into generic summer footwear.
Valentino – VLogo Signature Slide Sandals
Valentino – Rockstud Mules
Valentino – Vlogo Signature Raffia Slingback Pump
Dolce&Gabbana: Raffia and Logo, Turned All the Way Up
Dolce&Gabbana doesn’t do quiet poolside footwear, and this range doesn’t pretend otherwise. Raffia Wedge Sandal takes the same material Valentino treats with restraint and gives it more presence — the wedge is higher, the silhouette more sculptural, built for someone who wants the shoe to register from across a terrace. Raffia Braid Slides go further into texture: hand-braided construction that reads as artisanal rather than mass-produced, the kind of detail that photographs better up close than it does from a distance, which is unusual for a slide.
Beachwear Slides are the most straightforwardly practical piece in the Dolce&Gabbana range here — built for actual water exposure, with the house’s branding present but not the point. Sliders with Logo close the group with the opposite instinct: logo-forward, unambiguous, built for anyone who wants the house name legible from a sun lounger away.
Dolce&Gabbana – Beachwear Slides
Dolce&Gabbana – Sliders with Logo
Dolce&Gabbana – Raffia Wedge Sandal
Dolce&Gabbana – Raffia Braid Slides
Versace: Medusa, Rubber and Maximum Presence
Versace’s approach to poolside footwear starts from a different assumption than the other two houses — that a summer shoe doesn’t need to apologize for being noticed. Alia Rubber Flat Sandals, shown in two colorways, build the house’s Medusa hardware directly into a rubber sole construction designed for actual pool use rather than adjacent lounging. The rubber is doing real work here: waterproof, durable, built for repetition rather than a single event.
Beige Platform Slides take the same logic and add height. A platform slide is a specific kind of commitment — it reads as loungewear and as a statement simultaneously, and the beige colorway keeps it from tipping entirely into evening territory. Versace isn’t asking these shoes to blend into anything. That’s the appeal.
Versace – Alia Rubber Flat Sandals
Versace – Beige Platform Slides
Available at Fashion Gallery
Valentino, Dolce&Gabbana, and Versace are all part of the permanent edit at Fashion Gallery in Porto Montenegro, the largest multi-brand luxury selection on the Adriatic coast. All pieces in this edit are in-store now. The full current selection from all three houses is at fashionporto.com.
