The line up for the Valentino show was stellar: Gwyneth Paltrow in a plunging white dress swinging her blonde hair towards Valentino, who was chatting to Naomi Campbell under her pink hat.https://www.instagram.com/p/BzfLRxhnrJM/?utm_source=ig_embedCount in supermodel Natalia Vodianova, and star singer Celine Dion who was in intense conversation with shoe king Christian Louboutin, and that’s not to mention the haute couture clients glittering with diamond necklaces as they perched on their high heels.https://www.instagram.com/p/BzfPHCLHzD7/?utm_source=ig_embedBut the moment that created the evening’s magic was when current designer Pierpaolo Piccioli led the entire team of hand workers past the wider audience and across the central room to pay homage to founder Valentino Garavani, who became awash with tears at this tribune.
It was both a private ‘family’ moment and a shout-out about real couture, the creative, hand-made, tailored or wildly decorated personal work that is the essence of the rare and endangered high-fashion species.
A diverse series of models wore stunning outfits, starting with buttercup-yellow flower-embroidered bodices growing into a sunshine skirt that looked as though it was a continuation of a hat covered in thick woolen yellow fringes.https://www.instagram.com/p/BzfP04rnKJc/?utm_source=ig_embedThen came orange with lilac, deep and pale turquoise, and a tailored rose-pink coat with pistachio-green trousers. The designer’s sense of colour is both imaginative and impeccable.https://www.instagram.com/p/BzfNUhtHGjS/?utm_source=ig_embed“I started the collection with the idea of couture as an expression of individuality, extravagance, diversity, which for me is of the moment,” said Pierpaolo. “For me it is the idea of evaluating diversity. Inclusivity is important to get the couture alive. Otherwise it could be a beautiful world but belonging to the past. It has to be about diversity and extravaganza.”
