Valentino couture a feast of colour in Rome

Valentino went home to Rome to showcase its latest haute couture collection, ‘The Beginning,’ depicting the idea of “beauty heralded” by its creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli.

The Italian fashion house turned Rome’s Spanish Steps into a rainbow of colour with a joyful autumn/winter haute couture collection filled with dramatic silhouettes and exquisite embellishments, which will surely hit the red carpet soon.

The idea of beauty was at the heart of the collection and Piccioli ensure that the cast of models presenting the looks was diverse. This was probably one of the most inclusive catwalk shows seen, featuring various body shapes, ethnicities, ages and genders, as Valentino looks to broaden the spectrum of beauty.

“Beauty comes from harmony. It is not an aesthetic imposition, it does not obey rigid canons, nor fixed rules. Beauty is a manner, and it is pivotal to the way Maison Valentino operates since its foundation,” Valentino states in the show notes.

Valentino presents haute couture AW22 in Rome

This was also a collection that paid homage to the fashion house’s heritage and founder Valentino Garavani while looking to the future. With Piccioli having an imaginary conversation with the founder through “a collection of moments, themes, colours, materials, signs, lines, following the map of taste and sentiment”.

This didn’t result in a couture line-up filled with nostalgia but rather a collection filled with the codes of the fashion house envisioned for the future, peppered with a reimagining of iconic looks from previous Valentino collections. This was seen in the iconic ‘Fiesta’ dress from Valentino’s first-ever catwalk show, reimagined by Piccioli from a red floral strapless gown into a jacket covered in 3D roses.

“Everything starts anew where everything invariably begins: in Rome, in the Atelier, the place where creations and inventions come to life through the hands and stories of those who actually make the clothes, of those who imprint their character on cloth through manual work,” adds the fashion house. “The manner hasn’t changed. Not even the address has changed. And yet everything has changed.”

The rose was also seen on other looks throughout the collection including oversized shirts, on the straps of the shoes, floor-sweeping gowns, as brooches on blazers, as well as being fashioned as bras teamed with coordinated embellished skirts, and as oversized prints on floor-length coats.

Volume and texture were a key theme, while still offering a lightness throughout, with billowing ruffles of tulle and feathers a recurring embellishment. There were feathers embroidered on everything from chiffon and organza dresses to peacoats, floating capes, shoes, and dramatic headpieces.

Colour also added to the joy and drama of the collection, with pieces ranging in colour from Valentino’s iconic pink to lime green, orange, purple, teal, emerald green, and red, alongside shimmering silvers and monochrome looks.