Valentino creative team Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli came up with an astonishing collection. There were some fine touches like the spaghetti-like embroideries coiled on coats and dresses. There was a model that stepped out in a black, birdcage-like cape made out of fabric tubes and the entire audience broke out in a spontaneous applause. Chiuri and Piccioli celebrated the feminine with grace and demonstrated intoxicating haute couture craftsmanship and beauty.
The cuts were precision and resolutely modern. Suits and coats were structured and conveyed a futuristic gloss doing away of any prim and proper air of what a suit is thought to be. One beautiful long sleeved gown was made in a glossy wool of a blush faint rose and had almost no detail but a high bud-like neckline and fabric just opening like petals in the back.
Going beyond flowers these designers created labyrinths on a Fifties skirt in strips of lace and dresses that would be exquisite statements for the spring. Beautiful embroidery depicts the spring season and it is all done poetically.
According to the program notes, it took 600 hours in the atelier on a dress that has a frothy bustier, with a skirt of black tulle with an outline of silvery birds flurrying against the sky. Piccioli and Chiuri wished to convey the lightness and the beauty of a garden, forgetting the labor that goes into creating the pieces.
Valentino Garavani embraced his two successors showing that they are continuing his fashion legacy. What a long way they have come! They deserve to have many, many flowers thrown to them.
The world of couture is changing and is one of the unique specialties in the world that seems to be an exotic rarity today that some ladies have the privilege to enjoy. Thank goodness there are new young couturiers who are finding their way and making their mark in the alluring world of Couture. Valentino definitely made his.
But when Valentino announced his retirement in 2007, I was horrified and shocked. I asked myself, what is going to happen to the world of Haute Couture since all of the greats are retiring or dying?? Yves Saint Laurent is gone and now Valentino is going!
Enter Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierre Paolo Piccioli. They have previously designed accessories for the label for 10 years. Really? Accessories? What makes them qualified to design Haute Couture when their experience is only accessories? With the full support of Valentino himself Chiuri and Piccioli presented their first collection in 2009.
In the past their collections were confusing because they were infusing their own ideas while still maintaining the essentials of the house. I saw that it is going to take time for this design duo to sail through the turbulence and land smoothly into the groove of the Valentino world of Couture. This Spring season they presented a collection that exhibited their persistance in pleasing the Valentino fans, clients and editors.
