Valentino HC S/S 2012 Paris

[*Bianca*]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I absolutely loved this collection. All the fabrics were amazing, the cuts were perfect as always, and the soundtrack fit beautifully. I don't mind them using the same cuts every time because I feel like they refine them each season, and it keeps getting better and better. The only element I found found to be old or dated were the low heeled shoes. The high heels were much better.

I'm with you - it was beautiful.

I personally love the cuts they've been doing, so no complaints from me if I see them again and again.

 

[MagFan]

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[MagFan]

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[MagFan]

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[MagFan]

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[Squizree]

This is so redundant.

I'd rather see something vulgar and nasty rather than this neo-1800s stuff. I get that they like the whole virginal matronly style, but this is just cheap and so redundant.

 

[tania_rc]

backstage



fashionising.com

 

[tania_rc]

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[tania_rc]

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[CRISTIAN]

ufffff

2007-2009.....2012
FW or SS, PaP or HC
all the same

 

[dazzling85]

Such a boring collection. It looks so much like the ready to wear collection. Why bother spending on this when you can get it for much less price.

They need to change the look, the styles of the outfits.

 

[ebe_sp]

i understand that they wanna give the brand a new soul....
but where is all the signature embellishment and ruching???
i dun mind they make the pret a porter young and 'new'..but couture need to have some house's root.......

 

[Crying Diamonds]

There are some gorgeous details when you look at them closely - notably the handmade lace and miniscule beading, but the over-all effect is plain and also quite ridiculous down to the fact that they design the same dress repeatedly - with the greatest craftsmen in the world at their disposal and the most sophisticated of techniques to create anything they wanted, they just design a chiffon printed floor-length dress with a cinched waist and maybe a frill.
As exquisite as that lace is, Theyskens or Valli have designed more impressive collections for their pret-a-porter range in terms of couture.

 

[Morphe]

Welp, it's beautiful, dreamy and seemingly well-crafted but absolutely nothing new there. No progress, no new shapes or colours, not even Valentino's signature red.

 

[Alexei]

Sigh.

 

[dior_couture1245]

Lord knows that I've had little positive to say about these two since they started at the house, but I can't help but find this collection enormously appealing. I'm not quite sure what makes this particular collection so much more interesting to me than any of their previous efforts, considering how similar this is to the last 3-4 years worth of work. A large part I might say is how casual they've made these Marie Antoinette gowns look. That's a feat. Most couture designers today can't seem to separate the work from the cliche concept of glamour and drama and excess that Haute Couture usually implies. I love that we see here dresses and separates shown with flats and fuss-free pumps. I love effortless hair and makeup, I love that the girls all have their hands in their pockets.

And kudos for using Death in Vegas' "Dirge." Such a sexy song that gives these sweet and pretty clothes a crucial dose of eroticism.

 

[Stereo_Flo]

The creative duo referenced Victorian England through Liberty prints, pastels and white lace

HOTOGRAPHY BY LOUISE DAMGAARD
TEXT BY ALICE PFEIFFER​

Since their arrival at Valentino, creative duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli have dug up pre-20th century references that they subtly merged with contemporary touches. This season was no exception, as nudges at childrenswear from Victorian England (from pastels, white, Liberty prints made for a sweet, reserved elegance), and Second Empire-inspired dresses walked down the runway – all for a decisively 2012 result.

Think simple, mid-calf skirts and bejewelled cardigans for the daytime, and straight-cut tops paired with flowing, elongated skirts in taffeta for evening-wear. Ballgowns were either strapless with lace and silk applique, or with a high neck, sheer sleeves and plenty of bows. As for the recurrent loafers, worn with a matching pencil skirt or pleated trousers, those offered a more informal touch to the intricate collection.

-dazeddigital​

by Sarah Mower​

“We want to do something which is about fragility and beauty,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri, “something light—a reaction to the time we’re in.” She and Pier Paolo Piccioli were working in the Valentino showroom on final fittings for their couture show on Wednesday. A girl stood before them in a long, full-skirted dress with delicate wrist-length sleeves and a high neck in yards of blurred, faded blue-and-yellow rose print. “I feel like a princess,” she breathed, catching sight of herself in a mirror.

All the signs are that something extraordinary—even emotional—will take place between models and the audience when this collection hits the runway. It’s based on the designers’ research into eighteenth-century portraiture, the court of Marie Antoinette, the romance of Barry Lyndon and the outcome is exquisite in every detail of the multiple refinements of lace, tulle, and minute embroideries summoned by the Valentino couture ateliers in Rome. We are set to see lace slippers, cream embroidered tuxedos, high-necked ruffle-collared blouses, and any number of enchanting dresses in the kind of handwork rarely witnessed in the twenty-first century. Still, there is nothing Old World about the feeling of the clothes. Ornate as they sound, there’s an overriding freshness and vitality in them which feels genuine to a young girl like that model. On rare occasions, fashion shows can be intensely moving, and this may well be one of them. Note to audience: Pack tissues, just in case.

by Hamish Bowles​

The cryptic Surrealist paintings of the mid-twentieth-century Belgian artist Paul Delvaux—a flock of young women in pale turn-of-the century gowns walking away from the viewer—together with portraits of Marie Antoinette when she was a young Austrian princess; stills from the opulent 1938 MGM blockbuster that cast Norma Shearer as the grown-up version of the ill-fated French queen; and Deborah Turbeville’s mysterious photographs were among the poetic inspirations for the exquisite couture collection created by Valentino’s gifted designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli.

Light as thistledown, and shown on wan, reed-slim girls, the clothes also referenced some of Valentino’s own giddily romantic clothes from the early 1970s, especially in the use of faded flower-sprigged organza, often veiled and shadowed in point d’esprit and lace.

The designers used warp-printed taffetas of the sort that Marie Antoinette and her ladies favored for frolics at Le Petit Trianon, woven with subtle foliate motifs and even an eighteenth-century toile (in a soft rust red) representing Africa for a strapless ball dress with ballooning skirts. Four-leaf clovers or posies of violets were printed over airy organza and shadowed with layers of tulle and lace, like Belle Époque tea gowns. At the neck, a prim ruffle of lace.

The pair’s tailored pieces revealed a stricter hand—a sleek ivory cape over lean pants for instance, or jersey or double-face dresses with hand detailing of extraordinary subtlety and skill. Thus the princess seams of an unassuming little dress were finished with rows of self-fabric piping spirals, graduated in scale from shoulder to hem (the program notes inform one that these “rat’s tails,” used to trim a severe greige cotton coat, required 450 meters of fabric).

The program also revealed that 1,000 hours of labor, for instance, went into the handwork on the opening dress of elaborately smocked organza; 1,250 hours into the sparkling silver embroidery on a chine taffeta redingote based on an eighteenth-century version; and 800 hours just to weave the warp-print faille for one of those ball dresses. These breathtaking figures reveal just what makes the haute couture so special—but it is the hands of Valentino’s skilled Roman atelier staff that really spin magic into material that is, of course, far from base, and bring the Chiuri and Piccioli vision so beautifully to life.

In their own soft-spoken way this design duo have been able to take Valentino’s uniquely feminine ideal, remove some of his va-va-voom, but gently refashion it to create a unique and compellingly modern glamour that is all their own.

-vogue​

By Tim Blanks​

A conversation with Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri before the presentation of their new couture collection for Valentino quickly took a turn for the metaphysical. "If you don't think about fashion, you just do clothes," said Piccioli. "Fashion needs culture or it becomes empty." The duo found their cultural spine in the finest flowering of French thought, keying in on the eighteenth century's Age of Enlightenment and particularly the return to "real" values that Rousseau endorsed in his State of Nature philosophy. "Couture is a real value," Piccioli added. "It's not superficial."

But it was Marie Antoinette role-playing in her little farm on the grounds of Versailles who provided the collection's ambience. The first model seemed to arrive in the salons of the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild on a breath of cool country air. Sprigged flower prints covered almost everything. An antique fabric alchemy transformed taffeta into equally antique-looking blurred floral chaîne. The sense of precious old artisanship was also evident in the swirling bouilloné decoration. The volumes were diaphanous, bucolic, like the cloud of point d'esprit scattered with organza lace cutouts. The designers sought a "deep lightness." It was beautifully exemplified in dresses with up to five layers of lace and organza.

Examined up close in the atelier, the workmanship defied comprehension. The stitching was so fine it was invisible. It signaled the heart-stopping delicacy that distinguished the collection. But there was a real resilience, too. Hence the use of cotton amidst the lace, organza, and filigree, as in a coat with tone-on-tone embroidery that felt embossed. Hence also the flat shoes, which loaned their own kind of grace to the purity of an ivory coat dress decorated with tiny spirals (Piccioli compared them to stucco). A chaîne skirt had deep, useful pockets. Smocking was a rustic detail. There was a casual quality that made the clothes ultimately feel more modern than their long-sleeved, high-necked, and lace-gloved propriety would at first suggest.

Chiuri pointed out that she and Picciolo come from an accessories background, where they learned to tell a big story with a small object. That skill is now writ large in the collections they are designing at Valentino. Today's story was their most exquisite yet.

-style​

 

[Paris71]

I am totally in love with this collection.
Thanks God there are still fashion designers who make elegant and timeless gowns.

 

[TianSoFine]

Something I've learned from walking into a Valentino store is that there's so much more to a Valentino dress than what you see in runway pictures. It's not just the superb details, but it's the balance and perfection of every aspect of the dress with a simplicity and subtlety that is truly difficult to imitate. I can see why any girl would dream of owning Valentino. I'm sure that this can be true to Valentino couture as well, and probably to an even greater extent than it is true for RTW. To me, this collection looks beautiful in the pictures, but I'm sure that it's infinitely better in person.

 

[beaverhausen]

This is so matronly it makes Oscar de la Renta look young and trendy.. and where's the Valentino-ness in this?
There are some strong pieces but they managed to make even those look like something from 1982..
I love Valentino but I'm really not getting these two..