EXCLUSIVE: Valentino to Hold Fall 2022 Couture Show in Rome
MILAN ?— Valentino is once again paying tribute to its roots as creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli has decided to stage the brand’s fall 2022 haute couture show in Rome.
The show will be held on July 8 between Piazza Mignanelli, home to the company’s storied headquarters, and the nearby Spanish Steps.
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“Roma is the place where everything starts, the life, the people, our stories, and identities are here,” said Piccioli. “We belong to this place as much as this place belongs to the world and to Valentino.”
The show will be held in real life but also will be streamed digitally.
“I would like to thank Maison Valentino for its return to Rome, with a fashion show that announces itself to be unique,” said the Italian capital’s mayor Roberto Gualtieri, in a joint statement issued by Valentino and the city of Rome. “With its architectural and artistic marvels, this city is the best venue to host the style of the Italian Maison de Couture, which was founded in Rome and that conveys the Italian values all over the world. With this great event, Rome returns at the center of the international fashion scene.”
Alessandro Onorato, Rome councilor for major events, tourism, sport and fashion, noted that Valentino’s couture show “will be the beginning of a month of initiatives that will involve the whole city. Rome rediscovers its natural vocation as the Capital of Style.”
image courtesy of Valentino
Valentino has traditionally presented its couture collections in Paris, but Rome has been a stage for the brand before.
The restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic drove Piccioli to hold Valentino’s fall 2020 couture show, “Of Grace and LIght,” in July that year at the Cinecittà studios outside Rome in front of a very small group of journalists. The performance included a striking video filmed by Nick Knight, followed by a presentation of 15 white gowns as high as 16 feet worn by the likes of Mariacarla Boscono and Vittoria Ceretti perched on swings suspended from the ceiling or installed on towering, hidden platforms.
The storied Cinecittà studios served as the backdrop for the film and the performance because they are “the natural realm of dreams, where dreams are made,” and the perfect location for couture, which is “where you can dream the most,” said Piccioli at the time.
In January last year, as Italy faced another wave of the pandemic, the couture show was unveiled digitally, and called “Code Temporal.”
The show consisted of a presentation conceived by the designer in a dialogue with British artist, musician, singer and songwriter Robert Del Naja, also known as 3D, and a founding member of the band Massive Attack.
Piccioli selected the 14th-century Palazzo Colonna in Rome to stage the show. As an added asset, Valentino presented a film created by Del Naja. The artist filmed some of the steps involved in developing the couture collection and these clips were processed and edited by a machine that runs a series of algorithms created by Del Naja and his collaborative partner, neural artist Mario Klingemann.
Last July, the “Valentino Des Ateliers” fall 2021-22 couture collection was held in Venice at the Gaggiandre at the Arsenale in Venice.
Rome’s Piazza Mignanelli was also the location for Valentino’s fall 2015 couture show back in July 2015, when the brand was designed by both Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, coinciding with the “Mirabilia Romae Diffused Exhibition” that underscored their ties with the city.
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