Backstage at his couture show, Giamba Valli (nobody calls him by his full name, Giambattista) had only two big images hung on the walls: One was the famous Le Bain Turc by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, a painting infused with an elegant sense of erotic privacy. The other was a Helmut Newton picture taken in Yves Saint Laurent’s Avenue Marceau salon in 1977 during one of his haute couture fittings, in which models dressed in his fabulously exquisite tenues de soirée were relaxing on gilded chaises, with an attitude of sophisticated abandon. “He captured the atmosphere of the French maisons de la haute couture I was dreaming about when I decided to move to Paris to become a couturier,” Valli explained. “That attitude only exists here in Paris, a sort of posture of the mind, a nervous silhouette, décomplexée.” This show seemed to celebrate Valli’s own haute couture vocabulary, absorbed and distilled in the intense 14 years of his maison’s life.
It was a telling coincidence that Valli looked at YSL’s salon picture as inspiration. Not only because he’s one of haute couture’s unsurpassed grand masters; but also because his spirit actually hovers over this Paris Couture Week. Two fabulous wardrobes that he designed for two exceptional women will be auctioned in the coming days: One is Catherine Deneuve’s, his longtime muse and friend, and the other belongs to Mouna Ayoub, the Lebanese-born millionaire socialite of flamboyant taste. They both amassed treasure troves—testaments to YSL’s unerring flair for French chic, a bit of which found its way into Valli’s own haute couture collection today, one of his best so far.
The designer has a knack for a young silhouette. Here it found an impactful sense of balance: elongated, sophisticated, luxurious, modern. Classic haute couture tropes were given a streamlined sensuality and an attitude of confidence and sumptuous ease that had a fresh appeal. It was particularly in evidence in the collection’s first part, where dresses were kept short and tight, embellishments and embroideries were lavished with a controlled hand, and volumes looked fabulous, as in a black silk faille pouf cape worn over a draped mousseline minidress. In a positive-negative effect, a black velvet shirt tunic had billowy pouf sleeves in white silk faille. It had allure in spades, also effortlessly exuded elsewhere in a series of tight cocktail dresses, densely embroidered with a night lily motif.
Valli played a game of opposites throughout the collection, alternating neat, compact, contoured silhouettes with imaginative flourishes, indulging his penchant for couture pyrotechnics in a series of tiered plissé tulle or flounced silk taffeta robes de bal with long asymmetrical trains—a bit modern Spanish Infanta, perhaps. They could’ve been edited down a notch to further sharpen the message. But Valli was definitely in top form here: His haute couture lexicon needs no translation.
