It was in the Eternal City that it all began for the man whom everyone in the house respectfully calls Monsieur Valentino.
In 1959, precisely, the year when Valentino Garavani (now 90 years old) founded his fashion house, becoming from the 1960s one of the greatest claws of Italian fashion.
But it is also here, in Rome, that Pierpaolo Piccioli, the artistic director of Valentino, remembers the great fashion moments he experienced there, when he was a young student, on the famous and grandiose Scalinata, monumental steps rising to the Trinita dei Monti, Spanish Square.
In the 1990s, the greatest couturiers – Valentino, Versace, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana – paraded there at the end of the week of Italian haute couture with all the supermodels of the
Read alsoAt the Valentino show, a passionately pink winter comes in monochrome looks
A memorable evening which, at a time when social networks did not yet exist, was broadcast on the program “Donna Sotto le stelle” (W
oman under the stars, editor’s note
) on RAI.
“I took the train from Nettuno (
his hometown by the sea located an hour from Rome where he still lives, editor’s note
) to attend this event, says Pierpaolo Piccioli today.
I was far away, in the middle of the crowd, but I had come to see what, for us Italians, represented the very image of beauty, dreams and fairy tales.
Then I got back on my train.
It is therefore on this same Place d'Espagne, adjacent to Place Mignanelli which houses the Valentino Palace and its workshops, that the designer has chosen to present his fall-winter 2022-2023 haute couture collection, where he has moreover invited fashion school students to attend.
"This time all Rome can see our parade, it's my way of paying homage to what shaped me in my younger years, but it's also a new image of the world that tells my vision of beauty", he specifies.
Full screen
The Valentino fall-winter 2022-2023 haute couture show, in Rome.
Courtesy of Valentino
The diversity of beauty
His vision ?
Give voice to all diversities as he had already done during his last haute couture show in Paris.
Parade women (and men) whose physique no longer has to fulfill the same canons of perfection as before.
Age, color, silhouette, gender, everything is open… Alongside young and old supermodels – Mariacarla Boscono, Violette Sanchez, Kristen McMenamy, Liya Kebede, among others – the designer also called on a street cast.
“I want to tell the beauty of diversity, he insists.
In the past, for example, you could see one or two black models in the parades for an exotic touch.
By bringing nearly 40 black models onto the Valentino catwalk today, I want to send a political message, make an appeal to counter xenophobia.
Because fashion cannot be apolitical.
We designers have a certain responsibility”.
Read alsoGray hair and multiple silhouettes: the Valentino fashion show or the elegance of diversity
"By having nearly 40 black models on the Valentino catwalk, I want to send a political message"
Pierpaolo Piccioli
The main inspiration for this haute couture collection called "The Beginning", "is Mr. Valentino himself and above all", he nevertheless underlines.
If each haute couture collection is for Pierpaolo Piccioli "an eternal beginning", this one started from conversations with the founder of the label.
"It's a reflection on what has built the history of the house with a new look, a new perspective," he explains.
Hence the famous Valentino red whose dresses feature prominently on the designer's moodboard.
There will also be this joie de vivre and this lightness specific to the identity of the great couturier that Pierpaolo Piccioli wanted to transcribe and project into the contemporary world.
Joie de vivre, color and lightness
This Friday, July 8, it is therefore 8 p.m. in Rome when the soulful voice of the composer Labrinth (the soundtrack of Euphoria, it's him!) rises live on the Spanish Steps and accompanies the first model who comes out of the Valentino workshops and majestically descends the Scalinata.
At the bottom of the steps, it first passes in front of the starry front row -Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, and Spiderman alias Andrew Garfield are there -, then follows a long route before going back up to the workshops.
The joy of living ?
She is present from this first passage which takes up Valentino's Fiesta bustier minidress from 1959 reinterpreted in an extraordinary red jacket flowered with huge taffeta roses.
Worn over a mini jumpsuit embroidered with red sequins, the latter reveals legs sheathed in black fishnet.
Full screen
The Valentino fall-winter 2022-2023 haute couture show, in Rome.
Courtesy of Valentino
From mint green to neon pink
The rest of the collection is a hundred passages that literally set the Spanish Steps ablaze with flowers (myriads of extreme pinks), sequins and colors that clash harmoniously (from mint green to fluorescent pink, in going through all the shades of red, orange, blue…).
Another star element of the collection: the feathers, there are a lot of them giving the outfits a necessarily airy grace and they also twirl on the pumps or the spectacular headdresses signed Philip Treacy.
But no deliberately dramatic big volumes this season or over-the-top theatrics.
The silk-faille petticoats belted with a majestic bow are worn with sleek cropped tops (reembroidered with feathers anyway) and the dresses follow or reveal the body with an ultramodern sexyness that does not
Read alsoZendaya, euphoric in a vintage Valentino dress for the preview of "Euphoria" season 2
Full screen
The Valentino fall-winter 2022-2023 haute couture show, in Rome.
Courtesy of Valentino
colorful water drops
A plump girl walks past in a low-cut red dress with slits, a man follows in loose midnight blue pants, a sexy tank top and a coat adorned with a magnificent rose.
And then, there is this cape as light as a breath of air that takes up the black and white mosaics of Roman palaces and baths, a theme that Mr. Valentino had also explored.
Being aware of the past to accept the future explained Pierpaolo Piccioli in the introduction to his collection.
He also said that he imagined that these models walk on water and that they are like colored drops of water on the Scalinata.
Just look at the final painting which brought together all the models on the monumental staircase to understand all the poetry of what he wanted to express in this memorable fashion show.
