Valentino Haute Couture F/W 09.10 Paris

[lamies022]

Um that review by Miss Horyn is pretty scathing but I kinda agree with her, especially this statement:
"Plainly their intention was to make something new and young, but these clothes remain concepts on paper. They have no feeling for the actuality of life, no sense of a lived experience"

 

[*ana*]

It's just utterly insulting that these two designers will likely not have to bear being ejected from the house for doing exactly what the previous designer was accused of, and from where I'm sitting most of this looks even less "Valentino" than anything Alessadra did.

so true.

this collection looks like something made by a beginner, who is trying to make youngish yet elegant couture looks with a bit of a mcqueen-esque edge, but fails and everything turns out a bit busy and pretentious. actually, this is what this collection IS, because they are beginners, and to a beginner one could give credit for the effort and the few nice looks, but not for the House of Valentino - it's Valentino for god's sake. like him or not, it's a respectable house, and you can't hire beginners, simply can't.

The ruffled pieces look like it came out of a Christian Siriano collection.

rofl

 

[reese06]

The dresses are a tad too short given only older women have the money to buy Valentino couture

Most of those dresses will look a tad longer on 5ft 6-8 inch regular length women.

Or not as short I should say

It is Haute Couture, the client can alter the length along with many other things to fit their needs.

 

[dior_couture1245]

I actually find this collection extremely insulting...a new, young vision of Valentino. That is precisely what Alessandra was doing, albeit with far more refinement.

 

[mikeijames]

....I wouldn't particularly say that Olivier stayed totally true to the Nina Ricci aesthetic, and apart from general minimalism, I don't think Francisco Costa and Calvin Klein have all that much in common in terms of style.

theyskens really inherited a mostly clean slate at nina ricci....he only had to hold true to what lars nilsson did before. and i think francisco costa -- and italo zucchelli (sp?) -- have stuck very close to the calvin klein aesthetic.

my honest read on this collection is that i don't know if i like the direction they're taking the house. i'd honestly have to see it on estsablished valentino customers. while the couture is the ultimate laboratory, the clothes must communicate to the clientel -- and yes, i stole that phrase from mizrahi on 'the fashion show.' the clothes look good, but if they don't speak to the people who will purchase them, then they're just fruitless experimentations.

the glory of designers like galliano -- and mcqueen when he did the couture -- and gaultier and lagerfeld remains that they can go FAR out on a limb and yet there are those who still crave their looks. while these clothes are cute, i'm just curious whether or not they'll connect with the valentino woman.

(also, i reject the implication that the valentino woman is so old....gwyneth paltrow is a valentino woman.)

 

[tigerrouge]

Well, how about stop with the negativity and give these people a chance?

There's negativity and then there's objectivity - you can recognise that they're adjusting to their new position but that doesn't mean you have to suspend your critical faculties as to their output.

It's unfortunate for them that they're having to serve their apprenticeship in public, but in public it is, so they should receive no greater exemption than any other designer.

I have always liked Valentino but I'm not so attached to it that I believe there's no room for a new direction. However, what usually seems wrong to me about these new collections is that they... haven't come together yet. It's as if the designers haven't mastered the art of bringing a dress to life on the body.

To my eyes, in this collection, they've turned towards displays of embellishment in order to distract from that core deficiency. To a degree, it's worked. It might buy them yet more breathing space.

To me, the essence of Valentino isn't red lipstick or lace, it's an intuitive sense of dressmaking. It's an invisible yet essential element of the brand. If they don't get their own sense of how to do that, they'll only be capable of recycling looks from the archives. If they do master it, then we'll see a new direction taking shape - still recognisably 'Valentino' because of the sense of confidence.

 

[simple_elegance]

certainly wasn't expecting this. i suppose that's a good thing.

 

[fashionista-ta]

Well, how about stop with the negativity and give these people a chance?

Before Valentino had left, nobody paid any attention to his clothes, including the so-called fashion journalists and critics. Now that he is gone, everyone acts as if they all loved and cared about his bows and ruffles till the very end. Please... most of these people do not know what they are talking about.







......

One can't say that of Cathy Horyn ... I quite agree with her point that they are not dress designers. I personally like embellishment, but this collection looks like the result of an explosion in the haute couture workrooms ...

 

[ponytrot]

i have no idea why - but i actually like it!

I do think it's quite amateurish and lacks a "certain something" but imo (as someone who has never particularly worshippe Valentino) this is better than the last seasons recycling (read: regurgitation) of the Valentino archives.

Still, ALESSANDRA forever. The way she really introduced that touch of romance and elegance - the difference between her and the accessories team is just enormous.

 

[irulan]

At first glance, these clothes have a lot of what I like when it comes to dressing. They're delicate, made from exquisite lace, they glitter...
But then again, when looking at it more closely, this is just as much 'Guess the designer inspiration' as Gaultier was 'Guess the movie inspiration'...
There is a ton of McQueen, some of Victor&Rolf's hunt thrown in, I see Giles and Christopher Kane in some of this pieces, the one on Snejana looks a tad like Rodarte, and those stiff ruffles coming out of the coats have such an Jil Sander vibe for me.
That said, the dresses never even live up to the pieces by the original designers. They do look, as many have pointed out, amateurish. Like something a starter threw together based on things he liked. And they never are close to the Valentino aesthetic of the well dressed, diplomatic woman who combines beauty and elegance, whether grown up or young.
What's the worst about it, I don't want to wear a single piece. They look uncomfortable and not as if their made with the bearer in mind. There's no idea. I find them gloomy. They are handcrafted so well, and yet they seem to have been made with careless hands...I can't really explain.
The Lord knows I hated Facchinetti at Valentino, but her designs were on another level. They were professional.
Gosh, even Gianini who has been compared to these two blokes because she used to be an accessory designer as well, is better. Her stuff is ugly. But if you want to you can wear it. She doesn't lack ideas. Yeah, they're bad ideas, but they're there.

 

[Chris_Couture05]

Ok with these two designers and this collection, Im having a few issues. I HATED their last RTW collection it was garish, boring, and over worked. With their last Haute Couture collection the beginning was a bit boring but became quite beautiful. So I actually liked their last HC collection but Im n0ot sure what to say abut this. Personally I dont mind the dark look of the collection although I do think that there is a bit too much lace and tulle used. But the thing is that it is not Valentino..and I feel that the collections should be true to the house but with that said I think there should be some room for the desinger to be able to use their on creativity.

This looks very McQueen, Lacroix with a bit of Gaultier. I dont think that they should keep revamping old Valentino looks, but create new ideas that still reminiscent of the house. And I just dont see that in this collection. BUT i will wait until I see the show to come to a final dessicion on tihs collection

 

[tigerrouge]

A snippet from Lisa Armstrong's overall view of Paris couture in The Times:

Some couture ateliers are innovating. Before the Valentino show, I visited Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, Valentino’s latest designers at the company’s Parisian HQ on the Place Vendôme. Grazia Chiuri and Piccioli were slammed last season for being too slavish to Valentino’s archives for their first ready-to-wear collection but, up close, I thought that their ballgowns were astonishingly accomplished.

Who knows what Valentino’s faithful clients will make of the Goth effect, but those strapless tulle and patchwork lace soufflés were, in their way, small miracles, bound together with feathery stitches, internal corsetry and in some cases 50 years of technical knowhow that will vanish if couture really is on its last legs.

Perhaps it will die anyway, since few young people want to toil in the back rooms like Valentino’s team of grandmothers do. The chiarascuro effect of black-upon-grey-upon-taupe layers turned the dresses into moving shadows. “We wanted to create a new shade of black,” Piccioli told me. How couture to think you can invent a new colour. And in the week in which another couture star began its descent, how fitting it should be black.

 

[jenah]

thank you valentino for making the short dresses actually LOOK COUTURE.

 

[ponytrot]

strangely, i like it less the more i see it.

Valentino has always been on the borderlands of kitsch - fine line between classy and breathtaking and then rather fussy and overhandled. I'm tending towards the latter on this collection.

 

[stereofoam]

when it's labelled Valentino - i hate it. not valentino at all. and as obvious as it is i have to say that this era has just ended.

when it's the new designers collection - i like it very much.
still, i feel like it's a lanvin/prada/mcqueen mix, just served differently with the usage of the best trends from the previous season.

but brain likes what it has seen yet, maybe that's why we like this collection so much ;}

i personally love the short dresses, laces etc. i was just hoping that it would be someting umm like the greatest valentino refreshed with something he hasnt done yet..

expectations were high, i suppose

 

[dior_couture1245]

expectations were high, i suppose

Really? I honestly thought expectations couldn't possibly be any lower for these two...

 

[stereofoam]

i meant my expectations, sorry

 

[Chris_Couture05]

Really? I honestly thought expectations couldn't possibly be any lower for these two...

I must agree. This was a bad collection. If u look at my previous post I said that I would not judge this collection untill I saw the show...Well I have seen it and IT SUCKED!!!!! Excuse me for being so blunt but it was. There was nothing Valentino about this. This collection is so far off the mark that it could be from a totally different house. But the reason that it does not look like it came from Valentino is not the main issue. The fact is that its just bad. Alot of dresses were over worked, and had too much tulle. Plus what was woth the wings on the shoes lol. They really need learn how to edit because there is too much going on with there designs But on a good note I have to say that the opening song was nice lol. Well anyway here is the video from Michelepierro on Youtube

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUkFd4Y8HF4

Enjoy :0)

 

[merrymgr]

Thanks for HQs!!

 

[stereofoam]

but still, i hoped for the best. that maybe after the first collection they'd try with the second one. err