Giambattista Valli considers himself “the most French of the Italians,” he said over Zoom from his Paris studio—which coincidentally is located in the historic abode of Jean-Baptiste Lully, the Italian composer who was the in-house musician at the court of king Louis XIV of France.
Valli is a longtime Paris resident, and a French flavor has insinuated itself into his collections since the beginning. For him, le style Parisien is a state of mind, or rather “a posture,” as he called it. Asked to expand on the subject, “French women have an attitude of natural confidence,” he explained. “They don’t care about following the latest trend, or being fashionable and high-maintenance; they’re very independent. Beauty for them has nothing to do with perfection, rather with a certain allure; sometimes they just dress their lips with a touch of red lipstick and off they go. They’re very décomplexées.”
This attitude of breezy chic and natural ease was what Valli wanted to capture in his resort collection, which he called En Plein Air. Waxing poetic about “the feel of the air dressing your body, of the breeze on the skin,” he said he was inspired by the grace of the treillages adorning French gardens—but do not expect a ride in the wilderness chez Valli, rather the luxe and volupté of manicured gazons. Lightness was the mot d’ordre of the collection: romantic full-skirted bustier sundresses were printed with green trellis motifs, delicate three-dimensional embroideries of garlands of flowers decorated long chiffon slip dresses, and cocktail ensembles were embellished with floral lattice works.
Taking a turn towards an escapist attitude, part of the collection conveyed a more exotic note, “as if French gardens traveled to Marrakesh or Jaipur,” said Valli, who picked up on the post-pandemic desire of exploring the world again. Fluid summer dresses in a warmer palette of saffron, papaya and tangerine were embroidered with intricate images of roses and jasmines; they will be perfect to enjoy “the happy times we crave” in style, said Valli, for whom “beauty gives your soul moments of instinctive, complete happiness. Beauty is definitely the best therapy,’ he said.
