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After researching Madeleine Vionnet’s draped world, newly minted creative director Rodolfo Paglialunga set out to offer his own take for the comeback of the storied house. “I looked at magazines, books, newspaper clips and anything I could find,” said the designer, who spent 13 years as an assistant to Miuccia Prada. He joined Vionnet in March, and his first spring collection will be unveiled in Paris during fashion week.

Paglialunga worked Vionnet’s signature Grecian constructions to assemble the pre-spring lineup of dresses, tunics and caftans, fluid and often cut on the bias. He accented sleeves — which ranged from bat and bell sleeves to knotted or draped versions — and cinched waists with obis or double-strand belts. To illustrate his ideas, Paglialunga pulled a black ruffled dress on a hanger from a rack in the house’s new office/showroom space in Milan. He laid it out on the floor to show how, once flattened out, it’s a rectangular piece of black silk. On the body, however, the studied splices, ruches, ruffles and swooshing drapes spring to life.

wwd.com