All’s well that ends well? Let’s sincerely hope so. On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, the Valentino haute couture Fall 2016 collection was Elizabethan themed, a conveniently fitting trope, considering that so many of the bard’s plays were set in a fantasy Renaissance Italy—Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and so on.
The cast of characters treading the runway were princelings, princesses, and priests, all high white ruffs, doublets, bodices, puffed sleeves, and clerical robes—inspiration richly available to two designers, Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, who live in Rome and are surrounded by the portraiture, architecture, and high Catholicism of the Renaissance. It’s a culture these two live and breathe every day, as do the all-important Roman men and women who work in the Valentino couture ateliers. All of them together—as a fashion house on fire—have created an influential and poetic fashion phenomenon over the past few years. It’s their joint capability which can magic up such wonders as the fragile latticework necklines; golden, pearl-embroidered brocades; and whooshing taffeta capes and skirts we saw tonight.
There was a fin de siècle subplot to the proceedings, though. It hasn’t quite escalated into a full-blown drama yet, but the denouement is expected any minute, a move which will separate Chiuri from Piccioli, as she heads to Paris and another house. Will this be destabilizing to Valentino? If there was a strain or a distraction going on in the planning of this collection, it lay in the matter that no one had noticed that Alexander McQueen and Sarah Burton had both comprehensively trodden the boards of this Elizabethan-clerical look before now. Never mind, though. Valentino’s many couture customers surely won’t quibble. More center-stage is the issue of how the curtain will be brought down on this long and successful design partnership. It’s to be hoped the parting will be managed in as grown-up and tactful a way as these two have always carried on. Even if there are tussles going on backstage, all’s well that ends well is an elegant look for Valentino.
