Valentino Collaborated With Dream Baby Press for Valentine's Day

Valentino Collaborated With Dream Baby Press for Valentine's Day

By Mickey Boardman
Feb 13, 2025

“I guess this is goodbye,” coos sultry actress Jemima Kirke, splayed seductively on a floral chair wearing nothing but a fur coat. “I’m gonna miss you,” she continues, as her alien-faced cat climbs up on her. “But I know I’ll see you in hell.”

Seated with erect posture on a love seat, screenwriter Jerry Stahl says, “I love every dirty secret you will never know I know.” Brontez Purnell, standing in a lush garden says, “My love for you burns brighter than a thousand suns. So enamored, I would chug a chalice of your dirty bathwater.”

These are video clips from Dream Baby Press for Valentino, a project to celebrate Valentine’s Day through poetry featuring Kirke, who in addition to being an actor is also a multidisciplinary artist, writer and musician, writer Brontez Purnell, writer Mackenzie Thomas, author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl, essayist Coco Mellors, and Dream Baby founder Matt Starr.

Downtown New Yorkers in the know, of course, know Starr — a literary ring master and sex symbol for today’s cool kids. Starr is also co-founder of Perverted Book Club, which in a move reminiscent of 1980s outlaw parties, hosts book readings in places like the Sbarro’s Pizza in Penn Station. Dream Baby Press has made a splash on social media with their popular "The Love Hate Lists," in which downtown notables list the 10 things they love and the 10 things they hate.

For Valentine’s Day, Maison Valentino, the legendary Rome-based fashion house that’s synonymous with glamour, will offer written texts by this eclectic list of authors and host in select Valentino stores in the US and Europe. Maison Valentino says the projects is “inviting visitors to experience love through the written word.” In addition to the romantic power of poetry, these literary love notes are particularly special for the one you loves as “each chosen text will be handwritten creating a truly special gift for a loved one.”

The collaboration will continue into spring with the fashion house hosting a special event featuring Starr. According to Maison Valentino, the project is “a selection of works by six contemporary authors and thinkers — ranging from humorous reflections to passionate love letters — offering different perspectives on the most captivating of human emotions.”

PAPER asked Starr why he feels poetry is an important literary form for right now. “I think there’s an eroticism to it.” Starr explains, “It gives people permission to say things they might not say otherwise. I think there’s a real shortage of eroticism in the world today, in a real deep way.” A combination of romance and eroticism for Valentine’s Day sounds like a winning combination to us.

Photography: Daniel Arnold

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