VALENTINO

Who decides when a piece is fully completed? It is its author, in the exact moment in which he believes that his intentions have been fully achieved, even if that implicates the partial and deliberate incompleteness of some parts, the exposure of the draft, the giving up the conclusion, and leaving behind open roads and possibilities that give the spectator the freedom of assuming how they will be undertaken.

 

 

The new Valentino Spring/Summer 2017 collection sprouts from a highly imaginative exploration of doing. Inspired by the exhibition at The Met Breuer in New York Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, which explores the theme of the unfinished through over 500 years of art history

 

 

Unfinished as a poetic decision or illuminating fortuity – Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli interrogate themselves on what the mind can assume and the hand can accomplish, and decide to reveal this process. The probe is handled with lyrical spirit through the eye of the Atelier, which is profoundly rooted in Valentino’s ethic and aesthetic. For the Creative Directors, beauty arises today from the apparent incompleteness of a number of pieces, because, with Picasso, incompleteness means keeping alive the spirit of a creation.

 

 

The expressive register is impalpable and penetrating. A sense of unfinished runs through the collection starting from the fabric, intersects the dresses and completes itself in the accessories. It is an unapparent unfinished but unusual detail that only an expert eye can technically perceive as such, whose first and apparent result is instead a form of procedural beauty, full of character.

 

The graceful silhouette is defined by an idea of pragmatic modularity: shirts, blousons, dust coats and high waisted trousers are produced in the same fabric, just like uniforms. Unsewn linings create overlapping effects. Loose stitchings run through certain parts of the items as if forgotten tackings.

 

 

Intarsia zoomorphic embellishments are disrupted and then picked up again, while the broderie anglaise technique is used to create ethereal textures. On the shoes, staples and stitching reveal the sum of all parts. The condensed colour palette made of black, blue, flat grey, dyed blue and canvas écru underlines the aim to perfection.

 

 

 

Determining whether a piece is completed even if part of it remains unfinished, reveling the authentic essence of the craftsmanship of the atelier, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli celebrate and share the intimate roots of their vision, converting with prompt and safe gestures emotions into the product.