Hair: Virginie Moreira at MA and Talent using BUMBLE AND BUMBLE. Make-up: Ammy Drammeh at Bryant Artists using Tone on Tone and No 1 de Chanel Essence Lotion and Body Serum-in-Mist by CHANEL. Models: Greta Hofer at Elite Models, Chloe Oh at Premier Model Management, Avanti Nagrath at Select Models and Anyiel Majok and Goy Manase at PRM Agency. Casting: Jonathan Johnson. Movement director: Benjamin Jonsson at Box Artist Management. Set design: Ibby Njoya at New School. Manicure: Saffron Goddard at CLM using Manicure Collection and Miss Dior Hand Cream by DIOR. Photographic assistants: Meshach Roberts, Matt Moran and Jaye Gilbert. Styling assistants: Molly Shillingford and Precious Greham Johnson. Hair assistant: Marina Demetriadis. Make-up assistants: Quelle Bester and Tamsin Ballingall. Set-design assistants: Axel Drury, Sam Edyn and Mick O’Connor. Production: CLM. Post-production: Touch
Pierpaolo Piccioli wears a lot of black. He smokes a lot but he speaks more. And well.
He is one of that rare breed among fashion designers that has an innate ability to articulate the meaning and intent of collections through words, in manners that stretch far beyond their mere physicality. Piccioli is on a mission, has wide aims, grand ambitions: he sees fashion as a vehicle for communication, a way to project image and make people think deeper. His collections at Valentino have eschewed the ideas of luxury and aspirational lifestyle long associated with the label in favour of embracing an all-encompassing community.
The clothes are still luxurious, of course – lustrous silk, cashmere and mind-boggling embroideries, even in ready-to-wear. The craft in the haute couture goes stratospheric: capes pieced from thousands of fragments of cloth to resemble intricate prints; minute plissé columns of featherweight chiffon that seem constructed without seams; dresses that magically morph from taffeta into feathers, as if disintegrating glamorously before your eyes. Yet if, in the past, Valentino created clothes inspired by objets d’art, by Aubusson carpets, or Delft ceramics, or Baccarat glass, like souvenirs of a life lived high, today Piccioli’s shows are motivated by more abstract ideas, by universal values. The clothes are exquisite, but through their presentation in fashion shows and campaigns they are animated in different manners, to different
