Fluid silhouettes, subtle femininity and an ethereal sensuality are the hallmarks of Valentino Garavani’s style. The celebrated haute couture designer’s striking, sophisticated forms and lean, graphic contours intersect beautifully with the world of dance, where Valentino, who retired in 2008, re-emerged last year to create costumes for the Vienna State Ballet. Melding couture with classic costume design, the garments for Vienna’s traditional New Year’s Concert demonstrated Valentino’s innate understanding of the dancers’ physique and his devotion to elegance, modernity and motion.
For the ballerinas, Valentino designed eight-layered dresses in blue, pink and his signature poppy-red, adorned with delicate fabric flowers – a perennial feature in his design repertoire. For the male dancers, he created a sleek black tailcoat paired with a white shirt. “It was really difficult to combine couture and the dancers’ need for movement,” he said of the project. “But I am very happy about the outcome.”
Valentino followed in the footsteps of a handful of high fashion designers to experiment with ballet garb. In 2009 Karl Lagerfeld, taking his cue from Coco Chanel, who created costumes for Le Train Bleu and Apollon Musagete, outfitted the English National Ballet for its celebration of the Ballet Russes’ centenary. Narciso Rodriguez and Isabel Toledo have dressed dancers of Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses, while Christian LaCroix and the late Alexander McQueen also designed for dance.
Though Valentino’s Vienna State Ballet costumes aren’t featured in GoMA‘s sumptuous exhibition Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future visitors will be among 100 ensembles from the late-1950s to the present that reflect the House of Valentino’s graceful approach to design. The exhibition explores Valentino’s techniques, recurring motifs, prints and geometry as well as the themes of volume, structure and, above all, line.
Born in Voghera, Italy in 1932, Valentino arrived in Paris in 1950 – the height of Parisian haute couture’s golden age. He graduated from the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in 1952, and showed his debut collection in 1962. His garments have been worn by icons including Rita Hayworth, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future runs until 14 November at GoMA, Brisbane.
Leave a Reply
Sign in or register to leave a comment.
Or comment as a guest without registering (guest comments are moderated)