July 10, 2015 |
There were sixty looks in the Valentino haute couture show. So we’re giving you the first ten, the other fifty you can look up. Anyway, there’s something rather Marchesa di Casati about this, despite the fact that she lived in Venice and Valentino was staged in Rome, the home of Valentino, they’re both Italian at least, so we can make this work, vaguely. And, when you think about it, who’s better suited to a full on, full length Valentino ensemble than an heiress patron of the arts/ muse? The reason, for the vague connection is the black. This was an essay in black, floor skimming, embroidered, lacy, sheer, velvet, black in any and every variation you can imagine. And punctuated with deep reds and golds, that appeared in both the dresses and wrapped round the models heads, in the form of delicate vine crowns. Waists were high, and silhouettes were modest and covered up with long bell sleeves, unless you the count the almost Roman toga-esque dresses. This wasn’t covent wear though, with sheer panels hinting at bare flesh beneath the layers. The Marchesa wore a lot of full length black. It feels very swanning around cobbled streets appropriate, whether they be in Rome of Venice. It actually feels very regal. Very haute. The black had the effect of making this feel a little gothic, underpinning the sweeter side of Valentino with a slight sense of the sinister. As Pierpaolo Piccioli said, “Rome is just a little bit noir, a little sinister”, so it makes sense, if you’re paying tribute to the birthplace of Roman couture, that the collection has a little of that darkness injected into it.
