A return to the
beginning of time, in order to create a change in perspective: a pursuit of an
essence that generates everything and is necessary today more than ever.
Following the thread of an emotional story embedded in the vital magma of
contemporary culture, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli accomplish a
new stage of a very personal narrative journey for the Valentino Spring/Summer
2016 collection. Looking towards a place both real and stylized they leave
Rome, the center and horizon of their own aesthetic universe, behind them, and
always preserving their invaluable expertise of métissage and savoir-faire,
they land in wild, tribal Africa.
The collection
expresses totemic and primordial grace. At the center of this story is a
powerful and persistent figure with an incisive, vertical silhouette. Cuts are
reduced to a minimum, as if the garments were created by spontaneous and
immediate gestures. Long tunics are held at the neck by necklaces and
ornaments, while prints are concentrated on long dresses with a simple
ancestral taste. The body is the protagonist being both vibrant and hieratic
beneath scratched leather bustier worn with pencil skirts. Draped fabric
generate unique pieces conveying regal grace. The mask, traditionally used as a
form of disguise is readapted as an expression of a symbolic ego and full of
pathos, is a recurring motif that appears in multiple patterns on bags, shoes
and jewelry. A collaboration with the artist Alessandro Gaggio has led to the
creation of several high jewelry pieces in white terracotta with motifs that
merge nature and human artistry. Natural and substantial shades make up the
color palette: notes of black, ivory, ebony, beige, dark red and forest green
maintain the inspiration of the collection close to the earth.
Africa as vibrant, as
throbbing, as imperfect purity. The analogical, hand-made approach is the
antidote to the digital deprivation of individual character in order to
maintain authentic individuality.
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