The Victorian era and the Memphis Group. These are the two antagonisms that Pier Paolo Piccioli tried to bring together within his Fall/Winter 2017-2018 collection imagined for Valentino. The gap is indeed wide – without going into details, the creative director for this Rome-based brand brought together the softness and monochrome of ancient lines with light, childish experimentations based on the colors worked with by the Memphis Group – an Italian design and architecture movement that started in the 80s.
In their runway guide, Valentino revealed their desire to unite opposites, to create harmony to bring into dialogue that which isn’t initially apparent: “Victorian and Memphis, fantasy and mathematics.” Their bet definitely paid off. With pieces each more desirable than the next, next season’s women will be seized by an intellectualized mischief to become perfected in pieces with a flattering and wispy cut. These pop art vestals still manage to fit into the Memphis movement.
The key piece in this collection remains this dazzlingly chaste dress with futuristic Italian dreams in tow – decorated as if with postmodern hieroglyphs, you can see hands, arms, numbers, flowers, and a number of colors on this piece that’s composed like a fairytale. This light, misty, and sensual piece is absolutely cosmic.
Leave a Reply