What sheer delight to walk into the Jeu de Paume and discover that Giambattista Valli wasn’t staging an haute couture show, but had installed an exhibition of his spring collection that he’s throwing open to the public instead. “Sometimes the fashion world is too exclusive and sometimes it’s nice to be inclusive,” he said, remembering how as a fashion-mad kid he had had to use every trick in the book to sneak his way in for a glimpse of Alta Moda shows in Rome. “So I think it’s good to be able to open this to people in Paris, to be able to share what is my idea of Italian beauty, and where I’m from—especially in a time like this.”
Smart move. The ephemeral format of the 20-minute fashion show all too often prevents any real audience appreciation of how clothes are made. When it’s haute couture on the level of Valli’s, the ability to walk around and linger over the skill and the exuberance, and the mastery of color and volumes, it makes the whole thing more amazing.
The enthusiasm was pinging off Valli as he walked people around the private view. His influences were straight from his heart—the epic beauty of the gardens and houses of the Amalfi coast; photographs and memories of Marella Agnelli, Lee Radziwill, and Jackie Onassis; the impeccable clothes they wore with offhand ease in the ’60s and ’70s.
The pictures you see here give a flavor of how Valli has extracted the essence of that bygone lifestyle, and is serving it up with a quirkily eccentric exaggeration for a new generation. The surreal fish-eye angles are his “homage to Avedon and Penn,” zooming in on feathered masks, extravagant fuchsia frills, swooshes of capes and drapes, yards of tulle trains, mad bubbles, balloons, and juicy bows.
What difference did it make to liberate himself from a runway show? “Well, to decide to do an exhibition, you are editing, going straight to the point of what’s fabulous,” he said. No need, this time, to worry himself about padding out the collection to make sure it would fill a runway. Concentrating on filling the space with the best of the best of what he can achieve, saturating it all with the colors of bougainvillea, lemon gardens, roses, pinks, he’s produced something extraordinary—and all the more lovely for the fact that he’s decided to open up his world for all to see, if even for a few days.
