Love: pure, burning, angelic, exhilarating. Love: all-consuming passion, an experience that elevates humans to paradisiacal ecstasy, transfigures the moment, and compels one to make supreme gestures.
Love: a fragile secret to be treasured and nurtured, the only power able to destroy controversy and adversity. For Valentino Haute Couture Spring Summer 2015, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are inspired by this absolute sentiment, taking a journey through time that subtly and intricately weaves together Dolce Stil Novo and symbolism, pop music and Dantesque images, classic legends and contemporary poetry.
The linking thread and ideal setting is the extraordinary biography of Marc Chagall, the artist of Russian origin who later became a French citizen. His incredible biography is a celebration of the power of love, which preserved his pure, childlike vision even as an adult, despite difficult experiences in life.
The path is ineffable: the complexity of pathos is expressed through celestial, primeval iconography. The woman is an angel who, as in Stil Novo poetry, leads one to salvation through passion.
The impalpable elongated silhouette has an empire waist and is made of light, pure materials covered with embellishments such as verses, cryptograms, motifs, and amorous designs. Private sentiments emerge, but are opulently revealed only up close.
Exploring the specificity of Couture in its true essence, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli conceive each creation as a unicum, an expression of the infinite nuances of the sentiment that inspires their work.
Natural linens, gauze, muslin, and velvet are superimposed in tactile poems on layered dresses. Corsets worn as outerwear or incorporated in the structure of the dress hug the breasts and protect the heart. Long embroidered vests are worn over light dresses. Bustier tops form wing-like elements.
The metallic knit dress is movingly tender, while the embroidery on the linen coat has a vibrant nature. Long velvet dresses and muslin blouses portray figures ready to take flight. Pure, almost elementary colors, capture the sensational power of emotion: neutral shades of ecru ivory and off-white are accented with blue, red and light blue.
This celebration of love focuses on its protagonist: the woman, a sublime creature who triggers this process of elevation. The message is harmonious and leads to salvation because mankind can embrace the true meaning of life only through a rediscovery of love.
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Tags: SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2O15, VALENTINO, VALENTINO HAUTE COUTURE, VALENTINO SS 2015
Sun, February 22 2015 » Fashion Blog
Travels in Italy. The search for roots that tell a modern-day story without nostalgia. For Valentino’s Spring/Summer 2015, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are inspired by the 18th century tradition of the Grand Tour, an educational trip taken by cultured young Europeans to explore the art, philosophy and traditions of Italy.
Retracing the different stages of the journey, the heart of which lies in Rome and in its vestiges of classicism, they come to understand its profound raison d’être: travel as a storyline and instrument of knowledge, a way to observe reality with a keen eye and recount it with a free mind.
This collection is filled with a continuous sense of wonder. It traces a path amidst iconic images and memories, wisdom and knowledge, while maintaining a light, airy note.
Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli layer universal fragments – views and souvenirs, scarf prints and baroque blooms, classic ruins and seascapes, virginal purity and the sense of superb artisan craftsmanship – and use them to compose an impalpable and personal language that describes the figure of a fragile yet strongly present woman.
The silhouette is a vertical line that vibrates, barely revealing the sensuality of the body. Dresses with dazzling prints, motifs, and patterns come in archetypical shapes: tunics, simple yet romantic long high-waisted dresses, and short pinafore dresses with low-cut backs that are seductive but protect against indiscreet gazes.
Double linen coats are worn with pragmatic naturalness over blouses and flowing trousers. Lace and eyelet lace have the precious purity of a bridal trousseau. Travel as an accumulation of notes and memories suggests the spontaneous gesture of closing a bag with a scarf or tying amulets and souvenirs to sandal laces so that they will not get lost.
Colors are combined like memories, some faded and others vivid: white, light pastels, linden green, baby blue, and vibrant notes of indigo blue, cinnamon, military green, and black. Fabrics and materials are classic: wool, linen double, silk, crepe, and leather.
Accessories affirm the itinerant spirit of the collection: flat sandals for traveling and light high-heeled footwear. There are simple shoulder bags with a clean design and metal grommets, one-handle bags, and constructed shoulder bags in patchwork leather printed with scarf-like motifs. Small marine-themed jewelry worn in the hair or on the fingers recreates fantastic itineraries.
Travel is a magical tale: outdoor views and landscapes rewrite inner worlds and vice versa.
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Tags: SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2015, VALENTINO, VALENTINO SS 2015
Tue, October 14 2014 » Fashion Blog
Watch the Valentino Spring Summer 2015 Women’s Fashion Show in Live Streaming – Paris 30th September 2.30PM CET. Stay Tuned…!!!
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Tags: LIVE STREAMING, SPRING SUMMER WOMEN 2015, VALENTINO, VALENTINO SS 2015
Tue, September 30 2014 » Fashion Blog
Valentino © Copyright 2014
Freedom of expression as a result of a natural inclination to undermine the rules, simply by ignoring them, even though knowing them to perfection.
In defining the ever evolving form of the Valentino man, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli look at this season inspired by outsiders and freethinkers; individuals who stand outside movements, groups and schools; artists for whom innovation is an authentic, spontaneous gesture rather than a pose.
They elicit an effortless masculinity, but also a subtle taste for silent sedition, and synthesise them into a poetry of renewed softness, yet another piece in an overall design style wherein fashion is conceived fluidly as a tool for sculpting the identity of the individual, and Couture comes in from another direction to support and define the quest for uniqueness.
There reigns a sense of controlled relaxation, moved by the energy of mixing the whole. The silhouette is precise, with soft, loose volumes.
Long polo shirts are worn under nonchalant suits in accumulations of prints sometimes geometric, sometimes fantastic: psychedelic stripes, bestiaries, landscapes, flowers, continents.
The idea of the uniform, with its ancestry at once military and utilitarian, suggests the craftsman, interpreted and translated in the choice of tactile materials.
The savoir-faire of a masculinised Haute Couture insinuates itself everywhere, generating shifts and transformations: Camubutterfly brocades swarm on field jackets and army-inspired garments; light coats are double knit and trimmed in leather; even the white shirts are made from impalpably fine wool, in a constant search for weightless solidity.
The layering of iconic, authentic garments combines formal and sporty, in the awareness that millimetric interventions can upset the overall balance, leading to genuine progress.
Existing schemes are shattered forever, yet without shouting, mixing prints, wearing shorts with a suit, using a windbreaker as a jacket.
Naturalness pervades the choice of materials: raw silk shantung, viscose blends, brocades, chambray, cashmere and silk, barathea with a masculine feel. The colours are organic: stone, ruby, mint, sky blue, sand.
Sneakers in viscose jacquard with hi-tech soles, lace-ups with thick soles, soft brocade bags and enamelled pins signal the expression of free thought: “Reality, with a dash of magic”.
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Tags: SPRING SUMMER MEN 2015, VALENTINO, VALENTINO SS 2015
Sun, September 14 2014 » Fashion Blog
