Valentino Haute Couture S/S 09 Paris

[SGaspar]

If Garavani was cheap, this is even cheaper. WAY cheaper. What about those huge pancakes? Not even Armani was this awful xD. And what's the inspiration? Where's the theme?... I really hope people at the Chambre Syndicale etc. re-think things about this brand.

I've always hated Valentino's designs. I always thought that he made the tackiest dresses ever. Just by looking at him you could see how tacky things were going to be. And then when he announced his retiring I thought "Wow! That's a smart movement!" xD. And when I saw Alessandra's pieces I thought that Garavani had finaly realized how cheap he was and that he was trying to make things up. Alessandra's job was truly and absolutely AMAZING. And then she got fired we all know why and I was like wtf???. And then comes this... The whole collection speaks "vomit" haha. It's sad to see, and it's sadder to see the two "designers"... What and awful way to end couture week.

Just as The.Rock.Inc said very wisely, it takes years to really become a couturier. And this is what happens when to unexperienced persons are in charge of something. Valentino was never good (to me) but it's now worst. We, as fashion designers, fashion students or whatever, should be ashamed/annoyed/angry or whatever at the fact that two accesories designers are working as fashion designers just because Valentino wanted that. That's stupid. They cannot even make good accesories for God's sake! The shoes are terrible!

 

[SGaspar]

LOVE!!!!!! Valentino never disappoints me. So classy yet innovative.

Really?! Have you seen the pictures? Are we talking about the same brand?

 

[Versace-Goddess]

I was expected something different. There´s definitely touch of Valentino but in a negative way. I don´t like it that much as i did before real Valentino gone. It´s ok collection, nice gowns but that´s it.

 

[disco54]

is valentino ghost designing this ??? coz there is no way in hell accessories designers can come up with this for a first try LOL , Valentino should have at least hired a proper designer and made this look believable and credible , the clothes arent bad per say but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for some reason.

 

[Spike413]

Cathy Horyn's take from her blog.

More of the Same at Valentino Show

By Cathy Horyn

As I was leaving the Valentino show at the Sorbonne last night, I overheard a young man say to a woman from the Roman house: “Beautiful.” And she answered, with a huge sigh, “It’s Valentino again!” It was as though she were talking about an amnesia victim who had made a miraculous recovery.
Where did Valentino go in the 18 months since the couturier had his big party in Rome?


The company’s new owners, a private equity firm called Permira, hired Alessandra Facchinetti to design ready-to-wear and haute couture. Many people in the fashion industry thought Facchinetti, formerly at Gucci, was a poor choice for a big house like Valentino. But Facchinetti turned out to actually have ideas of her own, and her first Valentino couture collection (last July) came as a surprise to a lot of us. It was refreshing, with things a young woman would want to wear. By October, however, American retailers were on the warpath. I remember one store buyer saying, emphatically, that Valentino was an evening jacket with jeweled button — that’s what the clients expected. I guess that jeweled button was like the light on Daisy’s dock or something. Anyway, Facchinetti was fired — as was foreseen in the press — and the Permira folks replaced her with two Valentino accessory designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli.


Wednesday night in the august lecture hall of the Sorbonne resembled a soap opera. The runway was a round stage, with guests seated on wooden benches in a half circle and an orchestra set up opposite them. Around 7 p.m. there was a burst of applause as Valentino and his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti entered. They sat on a front bench, accompanied by several friends. I looked at the bound, cream-colored program notes, which quoted Borges: “We are our memories/We are the imaginary museum of ever changing shapes/Piles of broken mirrors.” The collection was going to be a respectful homage.


The first outfit was a red satin coat with a star burst of draping. It was followed by a coat in cream double-faced cashmere with two large spirals, like flattened rosettes, on the front near the hem. They were about the size of hubcaps, and they put a slight weight on the coat. More cream and taupe double-faced followed — the models all with high, tight topknots and a kind of snub-toe, stacked-heel Queen Mother pump. Very quickly, the show moved into cocktail and evening clothes: tunics, princess styles and vintage Valentino short coats in glossy couture silks, in shades of emerald, ice blue, rose and taupe, with embroidery.
The mood in the lecture hall was quite somber, in spite of the rich colors and the live orchestra. After the finale, Giammetti and Valentino stood and applauded the two designers as they came onto the stage. Someone told me later that Valentino had tears in his eyes, but I didn’t see this myself.


In contrast to the scene around the show, the clothes produced absolutely no emotion. They were dead on arrival, starting with the first red coat. Much work went into that sun ray draping, but the effect seemed wooden, lifeless. These clothes were designed to please Valentino, to reflect his legacy and archive, and for the most part they were just that — imitations. If the new designers thought for themselves what the Valentino story meant in contemporary terms, it was not evident. Frankly, I kept thinking, Valentino could do most of this stuff himself — he already has — so why not let him? And while the new designers are obviously using the Valentino workrooms, their clothes were heavy clunkers compared to Valentino’s collections. How do you get from the superb show he did in Rome in July 2007 to this empty collection?



Sure, the new designers kept the template, but something happens when a designer retires: the audience expects to see a new beginning. If I were the Permira guys, I’d be worried if all I heard was how fabulous and “very Valentino” the show was. What is it going to look like next season and the one after that? It’s going to look exactly the same. Nothing is going to change. And that’s the kiss of death in fashion. I’m a little surprised that Giammetti and Valentino are letting their egos get in the way and are supporting this approach. They’re smart guys. But I can’t think of one label that has survived by repeating itself. Look at what Tom Ford did at Gucci, Lagerfeld at Chanel, Galliano at Dior — they all set off a little bomb and started over with the bits that interested them. Not the whole thing. And a new audience found them. Maybe Chiuri and Piccioli will loosen up. Maybe they will think for themselves and not like respectful students in the school of Valentino. And maybe the don will finally let go.

nytimes.com

I love her.

 

[notmanons]

i love her too. she's always straight to the point and brutally honest.

 

[leblue15]

she nailed it in the review!

 

[Miss Dalloway]

She always does^^.

There is one word do describe this and its; stupid!! Nothing remarkable, innovative or great, at least his clothes had an aura about them, while here its just a faded replica over and over again.

 

[prettypouf]

That review was spot-on, thank you for posting it spike413!
I'm glad that there are reviewers who are still extremely honest out there and who have a true style in their articles.

 

[Flashbang]

meh. it's not horrendous, so i won't crucify the design duo. however, it is very Valentino. but as someone said before, not in a good way. There's nothing really couture about this either. you can't just throw some beading and feathers on fabric and call it couture.

agree with every single words


i bet Facchinetti LOL-ed a lot watching the show

 

[Cinnamaranth]

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[Cinnamaranth]

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[Cinnamaranth]

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[lilach]

love it (not al but give them some time) and this will sell!!

 

[Cinnamaranth]

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[Cinnamaranth]

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[Cinnamaranth]

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[Cinnamaranth]

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[dior_couture1245]

I love Cathy Horyn.

Here's Hilary Alexander's reveiw...I don't like that she talked about the clothes being beautiful, because they really weren't, but at least she acknowledges the problem with this whole situation.

In the words of an old Roman: They came, they saw, they interpreted. But sadly, Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, accessory designers at Valentino for 10 years and now the joint creative directors of the legendary Italian fashion house, failed to conquer a new world of haute couture design in their debut, spring/summer ’09 collection in Paris last night.

The clothes were beautiful, there is no denying. The cut was impeccable. And the workmanship, as you would expect, was extraordinarily accomplished. But overall the collection failed to achieve that blinding flash of creativity that is the mark of the true couturier’s art.

The true couturier, Valentino Garavani, who retired last year, sat front row with his long-term business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, and a bevy of the Valentino party faithful.

He was greeted like a conquering hero as he entered the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne. He beamed, he smiled and, as the models paraded on a mirrored circular catwalk in the finale, he appeared to be holding back the tears.

But he, along with many of the audience, could not have failed to recognise the collection as a blast from the past, rather than a lightning bolt pointing to the future; a fabulous fossick around his archives, but not a fashion moment which transcended a faithful rendition of his master’s works.
An ivory cashmere suit with neat, gently-fitted jacket, a rose effect at one shoulder and an A-line skirt to the knee, was very Valentino; as was a cream silk short coat and dress, bordered with bands of coral at waist, neck cuffs and hem. Ruffles, ostrich feathers and lavish, jewelled ornamentation all spoke of the former couturier’s love of delightful femininity and de luxe embellishment. There were even short and long chiffon gowns in Valentino Red, faithfully fingertip pleated in the manner the skilled “petit mains” in the house’s atelier have been perfecting since the sixties.

There were some surprises. The blaze of iridescent jade, emerald and aquamarine for a jewel-box group of evening gowns – shades not often seen in the old Valentino palette. The heels were stacked, not spiked. And there was not a handbag to be seen.

Since Tom Ford left Gucci, a belief has prevailed in the fashion business that the brand is all-important, the designer secondary. Time and again it has proved not to be the case in ready-to-wear.

In haute couture, where an all-consuming passion and a love for the entire process of design from the first blinding flash of inspiration to the creation exploding onto the catwalk, are as vital as skill, technique and experience, the designer is the most necessary ingredient. Haute couture must also have that awe-inspiring element of magic and mystery, which only the designer can produce. But you don’t watch a magician when you know how the trick is performed.

(telegraph.co.uk)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0cJIXFsPb0
The video makes me sick!!!
I hate the little celebration they're having backstage with the new designers and the sewers...this whole thing looks so scripted...'you will all have huge smiles on your faces because Alessandra, the evil witch, is finally gone, and Valentino has returned! Hooray for beauty!'...blah, blah, blah....

I especially hate Valentino's reaction at the end...CRYING?!?!? Are you KIDDING ME?!?!?

This whole situation is both heartbreaking and laughable!

 

[Salvatore]

I have never seen a man more up himself than that tangerine.
He was mad at Alessandra because she actually put him to shame. She designed much better than he could ever imagine. I am so angry.