Valentino designers find their footing
It hasn’t been easy for Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, the two designers charged since 2008 with carrying on the legacy of retired fashion legend Valentino.
There have been some monumentally bad reviews of runway shows, including one posted on Facebook by Valentino’s longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti after the couture show in January, calling the collection a “ridiculous circus.” Then there’s Valentino himself, who seems intent on lingering in the spotlight even in retirement. After jet-setting around the globe last year promoting the film “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” he’s showing no signs of stopping, celebrating his 78th birthday with a lavish event in New York recently.
Which is why the red carpet coup that Piccioli and Chiuri pulled off at the Golden Globes this year was no small victory. They outfitted not one but two of the evening’s best-dressed stars — Chloë Sevigny in a ruffled silver lilac confection, and Jennifer Aniston in a sleek black gown with a slit so high it might not have been street legal.
The dresses couldn’t have been more different, which is a testament to the designers’ good instincts. After a faulty start, their last two ready-to-wear collections have been solid, suggesting that they are at last forging a new path for Valentino beyond crimson ball gowns for the canapé set, to anytime-dressing for girls in the know.
Their vision is “romantic but not sweet,” they explained on a recent visit to L.A. Think lace-embroidered T-shirt dresses, fluttery organza shorts, shrunken leather jackets with rosette details and prints inspired by “burning orchids.”
With their dark, shaggy hair and smoky voices, the two look more rock ‘n’ roll than Dolce Vita. Although they are not romantically involved, they have been working side by side for more than 20 years — first as accessories designers at Fendi — and describe their relationship as yin and yang. (He is the pragmatist, and she is the dreamer.)
In 1999, they were recruited by Valentino himself to design shoes and bags for his house. When he retired in 2007, they became creative directors for accessories design. And the next year, they were put in charge of couture and ready-to-wear clothing design too.
They insist Valentino is supportive of their work, despite Giammetti’s public slight (Giammetti holds the title of honorary president at the house, and was all smiles in the front row at the fall ready-to-wear collection in March.) One gets the sense that for Piccioli and Chiuri, dealing with Valentino and Giammetti is like dealing with cantankerous grandparents. “We can be respectful, but we don’t have to be reverential,” Piccioli says over coffee at the Valentino boutique in Beverly Hills.
While it seemed strange at first to have two accessories designers at the helm of such a lauded house, it now seems fitting. For one, when women buy clothes today they are looking for one great piece, not a full trend or look.
“It’s a different way to wear Valentino,” Piccioli explains. “The same iconic elements but in a more contemporary way.”
Also, with cheap chic clothing as readily available now as fast food, designer fashion houses live or die by their accessory sales. So having creative directors who think about shoe and bag design as a part of the whole package is an advantage.
The designers’ immensely commercial, bow- and flower petal-decorated hobo bags and sandals have been selling briskly for several seasons now. But lately, they’ve also started creating some of the runway’s most memorable showpieces. For spring 2010, they collaborated with British milliner Philip Treacy on extraordinary shoes with stiff, Mercury-like lace wings at the heels.
Each pair (about $4,700) is one of a kind, with lace that is lacquered and embroidered. And they epitomize the new direction of the brand — couture fabric and technique zooming into the future.
“We want to find the dream in a single piece,” says Chiuri, holding a black lace shoe in her hand. “I don’t even have these shoes in my closet.”
Don’t feel too bad. She’s already wearing Valentino’s next hot shoe, the fall 2010 season’s studded, patent leather kitten heels. Start the waiting list now.
