Valentino launches book in celebration of the brand's 65th anniversary

Colors are seasonal and, at the same time, timeless in fashion. Democratic on the one hand, permanently connected to brands on the other. This is the case with the intense red, which will forever be remembered as red Valentino . It is so emblematic that an entire book was dedicated to it, bringing together more than 180 dresses and accessories from the brand's collection created 65 years ago. Rosso Valentino, published by the Assouline publishing house, brings from the creations that marked the era of its founder, Valentino Garavani , to that of the current creative director, Pierpaolo Piccioli .

The text and selection of pieces are by Charlie Porter, a writer and curator who collaborates with newspapers such as the Financial Times and The New York Times , and is the author of other books such as What Artists Wear . Red, as Porter says, has different meanings. In Europe it is linked to power, in China it translates joy, while North American Indians believed that it is the hue that can be seen by the spirits. “This variety shows us how complex our reactions to color are”, emphasizes the author.

Designer Valentino's connection with red goes back to the opera Carmen, which he saw when he was still a student on vacation in Barcelona. Two memories remain from that night: the fact that the costumes and also the spectators' clothes, chairs and curtains were in red. One of the women in the audience was a gray-haired lady dressed in monochrome velvet with matching accessories. “I never forgot about her. I understood that there wasn't a better color than white and black”, said the Italian designer in 1990 – five years before, in 1985, the exuberant nuance was baptized with his name, whose composition is that of 0% cyan, 100% magenta, 100% yellow, and 10% black.

The emotional impact of color for him was so intense that it was already present in his first collection, presented in Rome on February 28, 1959, in a fashion show at 11 am. It colored the Fiesta dress, a strapless model, molded to the body and in tulle forming flowers on the hem. It is this piece that stands out from the photo taken that day, in the studio located at number 11 via Candotti. Many other models came in his collections and all of them are kept in the brand's archive, a living space in total harmony with Pierpaolo Piccioli's daily life, even if contemporary dress codes are different. If in the past Garavani dealt with strict rules for the female silhouette, now gender perceptions are fluid – the ample taffeta dress that closed the winter 2017 haute couture show was part of the Heavenly Bodies exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute the following year. of Art in New York.

It's a perfect example of how the current creative director defines the brand's path in the 21st century. “It's freedom. It is still beauty, but more the beauty of identity than of aesthetics. It's deeper. I don't want to be someone who dictates fashion. I want to propose values through fashion”, he explains, who loves to play with different shades of red in his creations. It was from this exercise that he came up with, for example, Pink PP, developed in partnership with the Pantone Color Institute. “I love Valentino's signature red, but not just as a symbol of power and glamour, but as something personal and romantic, which gives the color a new perception. It's a good thing”, analyzes Piccioli.