Giambattista Valli is coming up on his 10th anniversary. He's planning to celebrate with a Paris blowout next month after his haute couture show, and the milestone has put him in a reflective state of mind. "It's just very much me," Valli said, describing the Resort collection he showed in New York this week. "Not many designers do flowers, not many do colors," he continued, acknowledging without saying so explicitly that such things aren't considered cool by the fashion industry. It's a state of affairs that has helped Valli, one of Paris' rare independent designers, make it as far as the decade marker. Fashion's distaste for them notwithstanding, women like flowers and they really like color, and they appreciate the way Valli does them.
That said, only his boldest clients will go for the head-to-toe chevron lamé separates in tomato red and bright yellow (bordering on chartreuse) that he showed here. The collection's guaranteed people pleasers mostly fell on the romantic side of its graphic/romantic divide. An empire-waist, floor-grazing dress in a delicate floral print appliquéd here and there with blooms was unapologetically pretty, as was a shift in baby pink silk trimmed in white macramé. Sleeveless, almost scandalously short minidresses had a bit more of an edge to them. The over-35 set can wear them with Valli's cropped flares.
