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• Fashion news 2012: Why Valentino is the game changer of couture

  
  06 July 2012
  

  Fashion news 2012: Lisa Armstrong: 'The people who first signposted the way to modernity in couture are Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli of Valentino.'

  

  Valentino-Haute-Couture-autumn-winter-2012

  All credit to Raf Simons, who was hailed this week for setting Dior on an understated new path. Mink dresses count as understated? Well, it's another world out there on the couture catwalks. But the people who first signposted the way to discretion, lightness and modernity in couture are Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, who have been at the helm of Valentino for four years.

  Talk about a delicate touch: they're the masters of rustling up big statements out of thin air - or at least out of whisper-weight clouds of chiffon and lace that seem filled with vapour. The craftsmanship is astonishing, and all the more so for being sometimes invisible. Their latest couture collection this week was a prime example.

  Who'd have thought Valentino, whose die-hard customers once numbered Joan Collins and most of Texas's social X-rays, would ever go minimalist? Midnight-blue silk chiffon, round-necked dresses, with softly pleated skirts or panels of sheer Chantilly lace. floated past, followed by fuller, but never stiffer, satin dresses that might have looked severe in other hands, but here looked demure and elegant. Having made their point, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli moved into embellishment: powder puff-pink embroidered satin coats or capes over ruffled chiffon columns, lemon-yellow brocaded trouser suits and square-toed ballerinas with low heels were unashamedly lovely, with no need to resort to the constricting boning and exaggerated construction that had been couture's hallmark for at least 10 years. Along with Dior, this Valentino show was my highlight of Paris Couture Week.

  (telegraph fashion news)