Maison Valentino Essentials

Essence is the extract, the concentrate of a vision. As such it represents what is permanent as opposed to accidental. Essential are the things that retain such quality, which by its very nature is dynamic, instead of static. Essence, in fact, fleets in its permanence.

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The quest for essence and the definition of what is essential are central to the vision of the Creative Director of the Maison Pierpaolo Piccioli. While blurring staid definitions and exploring areas in which the individual is freed from constraints and limitations, Pierpaolo Piccioli is characterized by an unremitting, graceful sense of pureness, by exact, streamlined lines and vibrating. Essential, in fact.

Maison Valentino Essentials is a quest for essence conducted within the perimeter of the masculine wardrobe and the elements that make up for it: an edit of pieces culled from the Valentino collections, streamlined to their design essence and organized into an expandable, ever-evolving system. As editing of shapes and items with a particular flow and feel, Maison Valentino Essentials stems from a deeply felt, emotionally rational and rationally emotional rumination about contemporary masculinity, acknowledging that many barriers have fallen in regard to what and how a man should feel and look. For Pierpaolo Piccioli, romanticism and fragility are part of the picture, and so is diversity. This awareness activates a process in which opposites merge, fluidly.

Masculine codes are resignified in accord with the Couture spirit of the Maison, just as the Couture spirit and the feminine extravaganza stand for, stains and fluidify the masculinity of tailoring. The result in formalwear charged with a sense of ease, fluidity and a genuine disregard for gender connotations and the bossy attitude of the past, but not for the authenticity of each item and its essence.

In order to create this new freedom Pierpaolo Piccioli looked at men’s fashion through the filters of Italian movies of the 50s and 60s, and at subcultures that have taken apart the idea of the iron man to entice more spontaneous ways with dressing identity. Attitude is the byword: if that changes, everything changes – it is a matter of perception. A sense of effortlessness in tailoring comes forward in shapes that naturally accompany the body, however, it is and of any gender or form, with the exaltation of timelessness that’s intrinsic to the Couture rituals and processes, and the humanism they stand for.

Reduced to the essence, items like tailored blazers, Bermuda shorts, foulard blouses, coats, pyjamas, suits and Valentino Garavani accessories express both timeliness and timelessness, turning into tools of nonconformist, individual expression, into uniforms of non-uniformity, which is the essence of what fashion stands for in the view of the Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli.