The Valentino fall women’s ready to wear ought to be viewed on a continuum with what Pierpaolo Piccioli was saying about dismantling toxic masculinity in his menswear collection, by softening tailored suits with traditional couture techniques. For women, his push for gender parity integrated tailoring into Valentino’s classically delicate world in a collection entirely in black “in order to resignify all of the codes” from Valentino in the 1980s, “the ruffles, the bows, all the elements of femininity of Valentino, giving them a new power.”
This conversation, held in a preview in Paris, went into the specifics, well exemplified by a short tailored long-sleeved dress with 3-d roses sculpting the cuffs. “It’s clean and powerful, but not minimal like the 1990s. We must embrace new times,” he said. “Our job today is to embrace an equality of all the elements.” A famous 1977 photoshoot by Deborah Turbeville of a group of models in romantic Valentino haute couture lace ballgowns was pinned to his inspiration board. The image, captured in Rome, is a lodestar of the brand’s identity, but Piccioli was adamant that his collection be anti-nostalgic. He sees that tendency particularly acutely as an Italian, living in a country with a far-Right premier elected on the wave of backward-looking populist sentiment, in which the pushback against women’s rights is featuring heavily.
Culturally, he says, “it’s bad not even to realize you are going back, because that means nothing is happening. You see it not just in fashion, but in songs, music, everything, and I think this is very bad. It’s stupid for designers to say their work is not political. When you manage a brand like Valentino, I feel all the elements can become different for today: I think you can show the possibility to be powerful and feminine. It’s time to melt it together.”
His black on black manifesto for progress was explored in 63 ways, starting with a new Valentino day-suit tailored as a tunic-jacket and shorts, through sober-seeming matte black dress silhouettes, tough-chic utilitarian jackets, right up to dealing with naked dressing in romantic Valentino lace evening looks. One drawback to designing entirely in black is that the detail of cut and fabric doesn’t necessarily show up well in runway photos. In real life, however, the subtleties are breathtaking, a gorgeous smorgasbord of choices created from the Valentino vocabulary.
Things which have the initial impact of an impeccably austere silhouette will prove to plunge to an exposed back. There’s businesslike Valentino—an amazing man-tailored overcoat; a jumpsuit in the form of trompe l’oeil pleated pants and a molded padded-shoulder t-shirt. As in all the work that comes from the house of Valentino, the skills have to be seen to be believed—a vaporous tulle skirt, casually paired with a blouson, the delicacy of vertically-ruffled organza blouses, the classy swing of the volume in a fit-and- extreme-flare dress, in which the gores are inset in an amazing scallop pattern in a drop waist.
In his spring 2023 summer collection—which began in pristine white—Pierpaolo Piccioli expressed his creative outrage against prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s retrograde remark on women needing to dress conservatively in order to avoid rape. His collection in black followed through, expanding on multiple options for women to show their bodies however they will, from hip-slashed skirts to a full engagement, if desired, in full-frontal red carpet exposure in transparent Valentino lace.
