“Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” the Pink Floyd track from the Wish You Were Here album, surged, volume up, as Pierpaolo Piccioli ran out to take his bow after his Spring 2020 Valentino menswear show. Completely apt—Piccioli really is fashion’s crazy diamond, an authentic modern-day hippie who follows his own instincts, whether they’re deemed fashionable or not, and has thereby charmed and swept everyone along on his trips to wherever.
This time, it was to a place in his own head—via the psychedelic porthole opened by ’70s prog rock: “A fantastic journey into yourself, where you can find fantastic landscapes, and you don’t have boundaries,” he said. “When I was a kid, I was there, far from everything, and I want to keep that feeling when creating a collection, because then you don’t limit your imagination.”
There was a time when suburban boys in bedrooms everywhere would put their prog-rock albums on their record players and stare for hours at the album art, reading the meaning. That was Piccioli, for sure. One of the major delights at this grown-up successful stage of his life is that he can now not just meet his teenage heroes, but collaborate with them. This time he found Roger Dean, album cover artist of the ’70s, and asked him to make a comeback version of his airbrushed acid–sci-fi–impossible landscapes for this collection.
Well, that art—on souvenir print shirts—formed the main plank of what’s certain to be a hit collection. The riffing colors of the Dean print—on a djellaba-like shirt, a purple tree, sky blue; and on a long cagoule, a desert orange, weird outcrops, and purple haze—inspired a series of other jungly prints and fantasy embroideries. One jacket had a huge red dragon wrapped around it. “DRAGON AT DAWN” was embroidered onto the back of a hoodie.
The great thing about Piccioli’s collection is that you didn’t feel him reaching for “inspiration,” projecting himself onto another generation, or noodling on about the good old days of alternative rock as middle-aged men are wont, given half a chance. The fact is that he’s a down-to-earth modern guy who simply enjoys life and uses his talent to give men—of whatever age—access to an easy Italian lifestyle aesthetic. There was nothing in the collection one couldn’t imagine him wearing himself, either at Valentino HQ in Rome (the techno-cotton pieces in tobacco, khaki, blue) or in his family life-affirming summer Instagram posts, where he’ll be seen relaxing at the seaside in necklaces and caftans, and making them look cool.
Escapism in fashion can sometimes lead to dubious and dark places. Not so, with Piccioli, whose positivism is inclusive—the diverse casting he’s brought to his women’s shows carried through to men—and comes from lived experience. So, yes: shine on, Piccioli.
