GIAMBATTISTA VALLI

For its Couture Spring-Summer 2021 show, Giambattista Valli, the quintessential fashion house, posted a 14-minute long video on its social networks. The split-screen image showed in the left frame silhouettes modelling the looks in a white studio and in the right frame, landscapes or panoramas from Seville which the designs were inspired from. The specific editing of the video invited the viewer to an association of ideas. It offered the spectator the opportunity to simultaneously observe the creative process (as the designers wished to show it) of a collection, from the vision to the final result. 

The twenty-four looks were all more or less sizeable variations of long-sleeved taffeta gowns. The volumes were impressive yet well structured around the body. They worked, despite their fantastic dimensions, like light, intuitive extensions of the limbs made for moving in large spaces as the video suggested. If they weren’t over yet, this collection put a definitive end to the sad days of heavy burdening ball gowns. References to flamenco were recognisable throughout the showcase, with many veils and many red blossoms. The gowns were also tiered and layered. Some looked like inflated flowers while others were haute-couture expressions of Valli’s Grecian infatuation. All in all, the collection was bold and poetic. The choreography of a male ballet dancer drawing circles around the silhouettes was graciously executed while also correlating the designs to each other.