A very different facet of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s design imagination transpired at his Valentino spring haute couture collection. It was structured, linear, fishtailed, modular, yet still drenched in color and pattern by turns. The man who has triggered a million voluminous copies decided it was time to step off a path that has now turned into a fashion industry highway.
“When you talk about couture, you talk about dreams, but dreams are the expression of something which is subconscious,” he said. “It’s about the freedom of expressing yourself.”
Piccioli is as frank about cutting the crap about fashion as he is about cutting. “I hate it when people talk about ‘storytelling.’ I am not a storyteller. I don’t have the feeling that Cristóbal Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Charles James, Mainbocher, whatever—I don’t feel they had stories of the season.” Trusting himself to free-association meant exploring form and emotion in ways that emphasized choice, variety, and the ingenious devices that only the Valentino craftspeople are able to realize.
There were more trousers, more columns than before; an interest in constructing layers in ways which only the wearer will know about. Some of the mid-sections that looked like low-slung cummerbunds or basques were actually attached; other pieces, like a scrolled peplum, were tied on with a sash. Opera gloves could sprout frills which merged into the deep 3-D ruffles on a neckline. Bubbles, bows, and plenty of Valentino red recurred. There was gorgeous color—purple, eau de nil, and scarlet, parma violet, pink, mint—but then again, equally stunning black dresses too.
It gets list-y to call out all the effects. Better to stand back and see it as collection in which Piccioli challenged himself to stop the operatic volumes and begin his search for a new silhouette.
