House of Red: Pierpaolo Piccioli talks about Rosso Valentino

Historic seat of the Valentino atelier since 1988, Palazzo Mignanelli, in the heart of Rome, retains only a very small part of the important archive of the brand, with over 7000 outfits. This is where Pierpaolo Piccioli comes to study the sartorial construction of his predecessor, it is here that Raoul Alejandre , Valentino Beauty 's global pro artist, came to imbue himself with the thousand shades of color that identifies the brand in the collective imagination, and from which it is the whole conception of the cosmetic line was born. As summarized by the claim "Born in red", the title of the latest companion focused on lipsticks created by Masato Riesser and starring (among others) Mariacarla Boscono and Malika Louback . Over 1,130 red dresses are preserved in the archive , starting with the iconic cocktail dress in tulle draped with roses from the first collection by Valentino Garavani, Fiesta of '59, and 550 samples of red fabrics, but only five garments selected by the creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli to whom Raoul referred to imagine the shades, the finishes, the sumptuous textures of the lipsticks.

Classic and daring, punk and bon ton, elegant and assertive, however empowering, red is a color with a strong symbolic value, in Mexico (home of the makeup artist) as in Italy. Composed of magenta, yellow and black pigments, according to Alejandre, Valentino's red owes its recognition precisely to the concentration of yellow it contains. It is the sequin dress presented in Shanghai with its red turned pink to have inspired the color of the packaging of the line, as well as the bestselling lipstick 22R, where 22 refers to the number of the atelier. The origin of 219A Star Studded is a white and red dress always presented in Shanghai, “because the depth of red is enhanced to the maximum by the white, which magnifies the reflection of light”. And it is the ball gown in three shades of red worn by Mariacarla that inspired 111 Undressed Velvet, matte at the first application but ready, if reapplied several times on the lips, to let a changing multitude of reds emerge.

Let's talk about the red Valentino trademark with Pierpaolo Piccioli.

L'Officiel Italia: What did Valentino say about his passion for red?
Pierpaolo Piccioli: Mr. Valentino used to say: “Red is a fascinating color: it is life, the blood of death, passion, love, the absolute remedy against sadness and gloom. I think a woman dressed in red is always wonderful. It is, in the crowd, the perfect image of the heroine ”. And he recalled his experience at an evening at the Barcelona Opera in the 1950s saying: "There were only red costumes on stage, the women in the boxes were mostly dressed in red and leaned out like geraniums from the balconies, and the armchairs and curtains were red… I understood that there was no more beautiful color after black and white ”.

LOI: Did it explain in some way the choice of that precise tonality that took its name?
PP: In reality, the composition of the red Valentino has never been patented and it is precisely this flexibility that gives it its longevity and its eclecticism. What makes it unique is the hint of yellow, which warms the tone.

LOI: How were the clothes shot in the Born in Rosso campaign selected?
PP: All my collections contain shades of red and pink, since my debut as the only creative director (after co-direction with Maria Grazia Chiuri, ed.) With the reinterpretation of Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" by Zandra Rhodes and with Zurbarán-inspired Haute Couture garments. Among the most recent experiments strongly linked to red and pink, I am pleased to recall the Pre-collection that showed in Tokyo a few years ago at the end of which we were inundated with red rose petals and my last prêt-à-porter show Pink PP. Returning to the selection for Born in Red: I simply chose clothes that I love and that well represent the diversity of variations on the same theme. I started with a chiffon dress from the Alta Moda S / S 2017 collection. It is light, poetic, ethereal, but the seamstresses who worked on it know that it required 46 meters of fabric and 370 hours of work in the atelier. I then included three special pieces from the 2019 Beijing Haute Couture show: a glitter dress, a dream cape and an exciting dress.

LOI: Matter obviously affects color. What are the fabrics that best enhance the possibilities of red?
PP: Each fabric cultivates its relationship with color. I like the combination of several fabrics in a monochrome, the different shades build a complex and realistic, very contemporary result.