Okay, so here’s a question, and please think long and hard before you answer. Who would you rather read a review of Giambattista Valli’s haute couture by—me, or Celine Dion? Yeah, I totally agree; I’d rather read what Celine Dion had to say, too. Throughout Valli’s show—and directly after—she clearly and adorably signaled how much she was enjoying it. She did a few vogueing-style moves. She mirrored Rossy de Palma’s flamenco hand choreography. She got to her feet—as did quite a few others—and gave a standing ovation at the finale of Valli’s show. In short, her response was spirited and spontaneous; it demonstrated the raw emotion that haute couture, the sublime pinnacle of fashion, should hopefully, ideally instill in an audience witnessing clothes that take hundreds of hours and many experienced hands to bring into being. Dion was having fun. She was loving what she saw. And she wasn’t alone.
The last couple of days, with their mix of ready-to-wear arrivistes, upstart experimentalists, and legendary couture houses, have still been about trying to locate the emotion that can be wrung out of the experience of watching the shows. At Valli it’s always authentic and believable because the audience is full of the women, the Euro-chic mothers and daughters and sisters—the Valli-tines, if you like—who adore him, love what he designs, and turn up in whatever he has created that they (I hate to bring up money) have bought and paid for. This isn’t about brand ambassadorship; it’s about the personal loyalty that lies between the designer making the clothes and those who wear them. It’s quite simple, really—though in today’s world, becoming rarer and rarer, at the couture level, at any rate.
So what might have got them—including Dion—so worked up? Take your pick, really. Valli eschewed any pretense of day clothes and went straight to big-night dressing, even if sometimes the dresses themselves, especially the opening series of looks impeccably lavished with crystal and macramé embroideries, were super short. Valli worked his way through many of the tropes we’ve become accustomed to seeing at his couture, much of it accessorized this season with exquisite vintage jewels from Eleuteri: the balletic tulle gowns; the sinuous and slinkily sexy draped silk chiffon numbers; and the enormous Dovima-esque powder puff fantasias, this time rendered in various hues of pink. This isn’t a criticism, by the way; it’s simply the assertion that Valli is in the business of making things for the world his women live in. Clearly, that fact wasn’t lost on the Kering-owning Pinault family, who’ve just invested in Valli via their Artemis wing. After all, these days, isn’t everyone looking for a sure bet?
