For spring-summer 2024, Pierpaolo Piccioli merges Valentino‘s couture roots with ready-to-wear sensibility, creating a touching ode to femininity. Against the backdrop of FKA Twigs performing with her dancers, his models walked in cut-out mini dresses that looked like the floral 3D relief you might find on an ornate plaster ceiling or a precious porcelain vase. He called the technique “high relief”, borrowing the term from sculpture and explaining that, “what you see as decoration becomes the construction itself”. Flying birds were appliquéd into tiny shift dresses, worn unlined with the flesh peeking through. The same high relief technique was applied to denim and printed on stretch knits. “It’s important for women to be free to express themselves through their body and not to be judged,” said the designer of his short, peekaboo styles. He’d been appalled by a spike in violence against women in Italy recently and wanted his show to be a manifesto for wearing what you want and expressing your self freely. He applied his couturier’s touch to the simple shapes, perfecting the cut of white shirts, immaculate kaftans, jeans, and mini-shifts. The clothes had an ease that belied the craft that was lavished on them.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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