With a men’s show scheduled for next Wednesday in Paris and an haute couture outing to present the Wednesday after that, Pierpaolo Piccioli was in New York today, showing off his prodigious Valentino Pre-Fall offering at the Institute of Fine Arts. It’s a grand old mansion dating to the days of Millionaires’ Row, but these pictures were shot in Valentino’s Roman atelier, “where everything is born.” Piccioli liked the metaphor. The collection was informed by the house’s past, he explained, but in quite a personal way, with random references: to Valentino Garavani’s 1968 tiger print (among other bold animal motifs), to black-and-white stripes from the ’80s, and to a wave-like logo print that dates to the mid-’70s. “This is a moment about identity and heritage, and how it can be alive today,” he said.
Piccioli has lately created a logo of his own. The letters VLTN appeared all over accessories, including on a clever “paper shopping bag” made from leather. They were even intarsia’d in black on the back of a white mink and appeared in reverse (white-on-black) on a shiny puffer coat made in collaboration with Moncler. Not unlike the Resort collection he showed in New York last May, this one was keyed to the street, with an emphasis on tracksuits and track dresses, but the reliance on branding here was brasher. Piccioli has sidelined the romance of his earliest Valentino outings in favor of an attitude much more hedonistic. Pictures of Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall, and Grace Jones in nightclub regalia populated his mood board, and there was certainly no shortage of party dresses, the good majority of them in black with sparkling extras, from crystal rosettes to polka dots in gold lamé. The workmanship at Valentino is peerless, and he’s handled the shift deftly, even if there will be some holdouts for a softer sensibility.
Speaking of, should the #Blackout be over by the time the Oscars roll around in early March, the red tulle gown with heart-shaped ruffles on the skirt would be a sweetly smashing choice for Saoirse Ronan or some other young starlet.
