Shake up the established order of a classic suit and tie.
Tackle conventions and the symbolism of clothing.
Finally, it's a bit of all of this that the Valentino show is about.
By sending his grunge silhouettes to the salons of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild in Paris, did Pierpaolo Piccioli have in mind the lively debates that the tie has regularly triggered within the National Assembly since the French Revolution?
Not sure.
If the Roman designer goes on a crusade against the rigorous symbolism of the outfit, it is not to take part in yet another controversy which agitates the deputies of the Hemicycle.
Although;
his subject aims all the same to take the tie out of the shackles of male power, and to break down the boundaries of the genre around the accessory.
Beyond the political dimension, the clothing has, here, something of family, of the order of transmission.
The designer worked on his collection around the tie, thinking of his 15-year-old daughter who, from time to time, picks through her wardrobe to find something to wear when she goes out for a night out with her friends in Rome.
Read alsoThe Assembly tie: old-fashioned accessory or symbol of respectability?
Show - Valentino - Ready to wear Fall-Winter 23-24
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow75 photos
See the slideshow75 photos
White collars and tie knots
As a result, she bet on the famous suit and tie of her father, himself not very fond of formal dress apart from the big meetings which forced him to adopt the uniform.
He assures him, his daughter does not make it a matter of codes to be diverted, but of taste and freedom.
This language, Pierpaolo Piccioli wanted to translate it on the podium, with white collars and tie knots pegged to the neck.
The first passages offer a literal reading of the grammar of costume, nuanced with the sexy and liberated codes of the moment: we think of crop tops and bare legs.
Then a few ruffles here and there, long cape shirts, a bit of transparency, a leather trench coat, enveloping coats to which are added a powerful red, sequins, evanescence, are intertwined with this,
touches of yellow and checkerboard.
What emerges is an evening wardrobe that shifts the cursor of power into what is most liberating at night.
And more adventurous.
