The collection centred on skin-toned bodies
Under nearly every look in the Valentino collection, you could spot a special kind of underpinning. A trick of the eye, it was matched exactly to the model’s skin colour. In the age of Skims we’re familiar with those types of garments, but this wasn’t shapewear. It was, Pierpaolo Piccioli explained during a preview, the base on which he had constructed his creations. “When you do a couture dress, you start from the corset. The corset is a piece that creates your body. It’s the symbol of exclusivity; of being unique. If you build from that, of course, you’ll always be exclusive. I wanted to get this idea into the wardrobe. So, I built the dresses on bases – kind of tank tops or T-shirts – in different skin tones in order to create the shaping. On top of those, I created the dresses.”
The bodies created optical illusions
Depending on the creations they evolved into, Piccioli made his bodies in Lycra, jersey, knitwear or viscose, employing them as a kind of nurturing ground for ideas and techniques. Under a very sheer classic short Valentino dress in circular lace and sequins, or a red flouncy oversized unbuttoned blouse worn with matching leggings, the skin-toned bodies functioned as illusions of the naked body itself. Worn on its own with highly contrasting sequinned green trousers and a matching purse and heels, the body – harmonised precisely with the model’s skin tone – had a statuesque quality about it. Rendered in sheer on a male model under a short suit, the jacket lining of which also corresponded to his skin tone, it made the jacket appear as if it was fusing with the body itself.
It featured full-body surface decorations
Set in a black-painted Carreau du Temple with an experimental soundtrack by Erykah Badu, the show was a spaced-out experience. Everywhere in the room, pillars of fuchsia appeared on the benches and sometimes in human clusters of the same colour, with almost blinding effect. They were influencers wearing head-to-toe outfits in Pink PP, the colour Piccioli launched last season and showed half a collection in, and which fed into the Barbiecore fad that’s hit fashion with overwhelming pink force. It’s created a new, more outlandish aesthetic for Valentino, which was also reflected in the glittery, oscillating surface decorations that topped off Piccioli’s bodysuits in this collection. Dense and deep, these embroideries – sequins, beading, plume – had a science-fiction feeling about them, which was only bolstered by the illusionary quality of those skin-toned underpinnings.
It was a figurative message of authenticity
As the show progressed, the minimalising impact of the skin-toned bodysuits was swallowed up by highly expressive garments like an intensely blue sequinned coat that had been pleated. “I bet you never saw a pleated sequin, because it’s impossible to do it and it took two years to develop this technique, because normally when you do the pleats you burn the sequins,” Piccioli said. “I was thinking about this idea of minimalism,” he smiled, “which can sound kind of oxymoronic when you look at this. To me, minimalism means that you subtract something from what you already have. If you have your own identity, you can subtract it right down to its essence. I worked on these surfaces because everything is about pure surfaces.”
The show was called “Unboxing Valentino”
When Martin Margiela worked with skin-toned bodies in the late 1980s, he was making investigations into anonymity and how we can amplify our sense of identity and self-expression through that blank canvas. Piccioli’s findings echoed that study, but through a present-day fashion mindset. “I wanted to change the approach of fashion and think in a different way. I wanted to translate the idea of couture into ready-to-wear and embrace different individualities and different skin tones and different bodies [in different] shades of [nude], but not only in the casting of the show, but in the approach of fashion,” he said. He titled his show “Unboxing Valentino”. “I like the idea of revealing and taking away all the packaging and getting to the essence. It has many meanings.”
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