Valentino to Stage Couture Show in Venice
MILAN — Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli is letting his imagination flow and his “fantasy travels” are leading him to Venice.
The designer will stage the brand’s fall 2021-22 couture collection in the Italian lagoon city on July 15, calling it Valentino Des Ateliers.
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“One the most challenging aspects of my work during these unprecedented times was the reprogramming of some of my recurrent thoughts, which of course included the concept and the place for my couture shows,” said Piccioli. “The current ‘travel with your fantasy’ mode we are in pushed me to dream harder and bigger. My next couture collection will go under the name of Valentino Des Ateliers and the overall approach to this project has a lot to do with the name itself. I have challenged myself in orchestrating a symphony of different souls, minds and creative inputs. All of these energies drove my vision to Venice. This city genuinely and spontaneously generates vibrations on art, theater, music, architecture, cinema, and everything that has to do with creativity. That is why it has been a natural decision to go for this idea. I am a designer, a fashion creator and I need to envision my creations in specific frames. Venice is the frame of the Valentino Des Ateliers collection.”
The show will livestream on the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode platform and on digital channels. A select number of guests will be invited to Venice, in the respect of the current restrictions and following all necessary safety measures, said the company.
Haute Couture Week in Paris is to take place from July 5 to 8 with physical shows and presentations. As reported, the Armani Privé couture show will be staged in Paris on July 6 at the headquarters of the Italian Embassy.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused Piccioli to change his plans for the couture line over the past year. In January, it 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 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.
To present Valentino’s fall 2020 couture collection, Piccioli last July staged a live performance at Cinecittà Studios outside Rome enlisting London-based fashion photographer, filmmaker and digital pioneer Nick Knight.
The designer created 15 white gowns as tall as 16 feet, worn by models ranging from Mariacarla Boscono to Vittoria Ceretti, perched on swings suspended from the ceiling or installed on towering, hidden platforms.
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