Valentino’s universal beauty

Women. Many, different, unique. And men, special in their being different. «This collection celebrates humanity’s beauty». Pierpaolo Piccioli plays at revolutionizing the haute couture world. And he does so with Valentino's SS 2022 couture, becoming the spokesperson of a disruptive message. «The female body was both the starting point and the point of arrival of this season. I wanted to explore humanity’s beauty, without hiding the body but enhancing it, in terms of sensuality as well. Today rules of elegance or preconceived ideas on style are not allowed». As the designer explained at the end of the show, «This collection is a tribute to beauty regardless of the shape or silhouette of a body. This is what couture is for me today. This is contemporary beauty for me».

Piccioli's message, revealed in the immaculate halls of the Parisian atelier-headquarter in Place Vendôme, is a manifesto of body consciousness and inclusiveness, featuring a line-up of varied beauty. Without rules, except for those of savoir faire of the haute couture, applied to different types of bodies, to shout an idea of elegance and charm far from any stereotype. In a story beginning with Kristen McMenamy in a miniskirt and garter belt, continuing with a parade of special women: Violetta Sanchez and Lara Stone, Hannelore Knuts and Lynne Koester, Marie-Sophie Wilson and Anna Ewers, Maria Carla Boscono or Adut.

A diverse humanity is narrating the season's sixty-four outfits, in a symphony that alternates feminine and masculine couture. «We changed the creative process of the atelier: no longer an abstract femininity and an ideal body, which in the past was embodied by the house model on which the looks were created», Piccioli added. «We preferred to create every single look on each person, not adapting it to a hypothesis but creating an ad hoc garment, enhancing the personal and human beauty of each one. We tried to give every physicality the same care and attention, meeting and discovering personalities, which is also the process at the base of couture itself».

A process that does not allow rules this season, marking a parade of different beauties. During the day, it is built in the balance between the contemporaneity of pants and the aristocracy of voluminous coats or tops with a romantic train, created thinking of dresses that emphasize the body without constricting it and suits with soft contours. But also during the flamboyant evening, with monumental skirts and puffy coats, bows, dazzling sparkles and ethereal feathers. All underlined by a colour palette with intense high notes, a parenthesis of elegant florals and a sensuality that becomes extreme in its transparencies, in the cuts that emphasize the body, in the proportions that become micro or in the slits that open windows to the soul. «Each look is individual and unique and has its own special genesis. The study that has been done on the body is a dialogue conducted scientifically, romantically and sexually» he concluded. «I found a new silhouette not because I designed it but because the human body suggested it to me, guiding me. My job is to tell the beauty of today because beauty is beauty, and rules cannot exist. If I succeeded, I reached my goal».

Judgment. The message conveyed by the collection is even more disruptive than the collection itself, which as a whole tells of a decidedly happy marriage and an increasingly intense affinity between the Valentino Maison and Pierpaolo Piccioli. «I started by asking myself what to do to make couture relevant today. And today I believe that modernity is not found in the shapes but in the approach to the universe of high fashion." A rarefied empyrean of ideal femininity and unattainable beauty, in the hands of the designer, haute couture truly becomes the terrain of a social experiment, which goes beyond the innovation of fabrics or the construction of clothes. At the end of the show, while a crescendo of unique clothes and a collection that evolves exploring the territory of sensuality are stuck in our eyes, what conquers us is its message. In an era that preaches inclusivity and pride in one's body, Piccioli's work conveys an important statement. The line-up of beauties of different ages and bodies screams: be proud of yourself. «As a couturier, I have to shout a message of inclusive beauty. The power we have is that of image. I hope the very image of having different sizes and shapes in a couture salon will make new generations understand that this is possible». Well done, mission accomplished. (All rights reserved)