Valentino Couture Spring 2019 | Fashion’s Wildest Dream

Fashion. We often come to a time when romance and fashion intersect and the result is quite simply an incredibly, indescribable love story that takes our collective breaths away. Valentino couture takes my breath away almost every time, even so much more than the ready to wear, almost much more than any other collection. There is something utterly lovely about couture; the beauty is in the story that it tells. As you know I am a story teller, and the story behind fashion is one of emotion and endless toil and gut feeling and a deeply invested bond between a craftsman and his craft. Valentino couture 19 told that story, one where the labour was not just of love but of devotion and almost sublimely divine. It was beguiling.

Valentino couture is the one show that can stop many in their tracks, and steal hearts. It is about all the good things. Couture is about all the good things in life and in fashion. Its loving and its tasking and most times simple and yet incredible. This collection was incredible and sublime it lifted my heart because it gave that little gut punch of hope that you know, fashion will be alright.

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The clothes told the story of workmanship and craftsmanship, an idiosyncratic boldness and a vibrancy we didn’t know we needed. Petals and feathers, floral prints and ruffles, loose fitting pants draped oversize scarfing, easy falling coats, in colours that fought for attention yet were harmoniously united in their positioning and in bringing together the look. How did he do that? Pierpaolo Piccioli gave us a healthy mix of day and night, super intuitive and adventurous all at once. Pink so sweet it tickled all soft, brown, rich in hue and in tone. Silks, patterned and beautiful in the bountiful of forms. This was not couture trying to be stuffy and old, this was newness laced in the traditional sense and technique, a couture right for the season and moment and the mood, a couture that sparked the imagination and threw us back to when fashion didn’t need to try so hard to be cool, it simply was.

The face was simple, some models has extra feathers for lashes that would not be out of place at the Notthinghill Carnival, but other models were almost bare faced, with the no make up make up look, lip gloss and easy. It was an intentional look not fighting with the entire look. Piccioli wanted the clothes to be the statement yes, and in so doing the simplicity of the face became an equal talking point without trying hard at all.

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And the models were of different shades, different races, different and beautiful. And it did not feel out of place or forced as if this was an orchestrated moment that needed much pause. This was the natural symmetry of things, the natural order in which fashion ought to progress, the way in which things ought to be done. It was fashion in its wildest dreams because this is what fashion can and should look like, no, not couture everyday, but it should include tones in vast array, tones in points of difference that echo something.

This was the story that fashion has been waiting to tell and if only it would stick to the narrative it just might save itself. Thank you Valentino for giving our wildest dreams.

What would be the next thing to excite us, to make us want more and fall in love in such a way as we have now with Fashion?  Surely this sparked something.