There is the creative – cultured and passionate – urgency of Alessandro Michele and there is the complex and meticulously ornate elegance that was Valentino Garavani. An at times opulent imagery that is a combination of vintage and contemporary, of styles and eras, a direct emanation of the eclectic mind of a professional who subverts while not betraying the established codes of one of the most prestigious fashion houses in the world. “What you see is my meeting with him, it is my hands and my eyes that inhabit the atelier,” Alessandro Michele tells a selected group of editors. The collection is called Avant les Débuts and it is the first taste of the aesthetic that the Roman designer is chiseling for Valentino; between echoes of the Seventies and Eighties, as well as an accurate and incisive investigation into the archive of the fashion house. Those who wondered what it would be like – everyone, insiders and otherwise – today have the first, unpublished answers; dashed in 171 looks obsessively soigné which are an amalgam of Michele’s taste for the complexity of composition and the refinement that has always distinguished Valentino Garavani.
Alessandro Michele’s first looks for Valentino
Fur trims, lace, ruffles and ruffles. Meticulous embroidery, intricate paisley motifs, but also floral and geometric ones to tell of a new course characterized by excess, but rather distilled through the obsession with beauty. And on the other hand, “Valentino has never been a minimalist, rather a maximalist”, Michele remembers well at Vogue Runway at the same time explaining, as the perfect “archaeologist of things to come” that he is, the history of the aesthetics of a maison whose elegance has often been confused with a subtractive taste that has never belonged to it. So immaculate coats with iconic V logo golden alternate with roaring suits to wear with half stockings and Mary Janes, and long dresses encrusted with crystals they willingly give way to polka dot mini dresses to be shown off with ballet flats with a maxi bow. A scarf knotted on the head like a turban, flirtatious bows to stop the hair, and a cascade of pearls to embellish every toilet: from those markedly boho and enlivened by fringes, to the more streamlined ones composed of minis and blazers in white shades, in a reference to mythology White Collection which showed in 1968.
To red signature little space is allowed; on a sheer stocking, on a blouse and a midi skirt, on a suit trimmed with sequins and crystals. No; it lingers on something else, on that hippy chic dear to Michele and Valentino who shapes looks and accessories (93 in all) of suede and cork wedges, of lush prints and floral brooches that are a consequence of the talent (and love) that the Roman designer has for objects. A new logo debuts among the images of the look book with a retro charm, chez Valentino Rome/Paristo draw an imaginary bridge between the symbolic places of the maison and who knows, perhaps even to amplify the anxious wait for Michele’s catwalk show who, next September, will tell us about the creative evolution of the brand under his mandate.
For now let’s enjoy the new typographical slogan to stand out on the t-shirts worn under the blazers, or on his baseball caps who, in line with the philosophy of the Roman designer, wears jewels and scarves as much as she does, conveying a masculinity beyond clichés. “I started working at Valentino as if we were an orchestra – explains Alessandro Michele a Vogue Runway –; everyone played their instrument with so much love and dedication that I thought it was right to be grateful and appreciative of the people who worked so tirelessly to make it happen. My job is to tune instruments and it’s about sharing everything, so keeping the collection somewhat hidden from view wouldn’t have felt right. This is a beginning born of love: it wants to be brought to light, seen and shared”. It’s the new symphony of Alessandro Michele for Valentino; an eclectic melting pot of suggestions that wean ourselves from that order to which – for some time now – fashion has accustomed us. A complex mosaic whose future progress is eagerly awaited. A bientot…
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