Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli started his fall design process by posing to himself a question of a sort deep thinkers could mull forever: “What’s new today?” His answer: Nothing, really. Yet it’s fashion’s job to salvage that blunt reality by reimagining the not new into that which is gloriously so, which at its best awes and even inspires. As Piccioli concluded, “It’s new when you see things that you already know, and you connect them in a different way.”
That’s what Piccioli’s tenure at Valentino has been all about, first in concert with Maria Grazia Chiuri and now, on his own: He’s made us rethink romanticism as aspirational grail rather than reactionary folly, at least as much as such a thought can manifest in fashion.
Yet Piccioli understands the need for forward motion, and that, no matter how enticing the Valentino world of Renaissance-worthy damsels done up in exquisitely decorated silks, today’s women also have to dress for day, which he made the focus of his collection. To that end, he worked two disparate themes into a beautifully cohesive narrative: Victoriana and the Memphis design movement of the Eighties, the former for the depth of its romanticism, tinged with decadence; the latter, for its
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