How do you explain a thing like the red-white-and-blue–striped sequin hot pants at Giamba today? Or, for that matter, the sequined lipstick bullets; the sequined red-painted fingernails on embroidered hands; the sequined stars, daisies, planets, hearts, and stars? Well, if you’re Giambattista Valli, you point to legendary 1990s New York club Jackie 60, to Donna Jordan, to Tom Wesselmann, and, above all else, to the #FreeTheNipple movement. “It’s really all about Free the Nipple!” Valli exclaimed backstage after the show, and to some degree, it really was. The very abbreviated frilly hippie frocks the “little sister” customer (that is, in relation to his big girl Giambattista Valli line and, one supposes, adored child to his big mama couture collection) has come to expect from Giamba were here again, only this time with heart- and star-shaped patches-as-pasties, much in the manner of the emoji carefully placed by your favorite bare-it-all Instagram star. Think an aristocratic Miley Cyrus.
Some models had their lanky, pale hair raked through with pastel pink and lilac dye, as if they were members of the Source Family who ran off to Burning Man and never came back. Some wore zebra-striped ankle socks with sequined shoes, or tutu-style skirts with sweatshirts. There may not have been an immediately available narrative through-line, but going out clubbing—or freeing the nipple—is, after all, chiefly concerned with celebrating a certain joie de vivre. And really, what are those stars and stripes (even when sequined as a bustier or brief) about, if not freedom?
