Paris: After his fashion partner Maria Grazia Chiuri was picked to stand at the creative helm of Dior, Pierpaolo Piccioli was left to go it alone at Valentino.
The Italian designer was given control over the Rome-based house last summer, and, for the first time since the duo arrived at Valentino and oversaw a hugely profitable change in aesthetic, Piccioli’s individual work would be under the intense scrutiny of the critics.
Sunday’s show was his solo debut.
Show organisers cleverly turned the Piccioli solo debut into a fashion event by reducing the number of seats and making the spring-summer a hard-to-get ticket.
And the fashion elite that attended were not disappointed. It was a very strong show that presented a crisper aesthetic than when the duo designed.
Jaguar rose, on-trend vermilion, and repeated shades of red and bright yellow might well have been symbolic of boldness.
And the crisp geometry — shards on skirts, rectangular pant pleats and sharp V’s cut down the bust of floor-length dresses — marked a subtle, but important, move away from the previous softer-edged aesthetic.
Indeed, that soft-edged aesthetic appeared elsewhere this week: in Grazia Chiuri’s debut show at Dior.
