Valentino's Roman Wonders

Expanding the meaning of sewing, one ruffle and one feather at a time.

ROME — The couture shows ended not in Paris but in Rome, with a river of gilded ballroom chairs running from the Piazza di Spagna to the foot of the Spanish Steps - Europe's most famous staircase to observe and pose people - in Piazza Mignanelli, where Valentino's headquarters are located.

Twenty-three years after joining the brand in the handbag department , Pierpaolo Piccioli, now creative director of Valentino, wanted to bring his collection home to where it started, to offer something of a treatise on history, humanity and what happens next. That it comes in the form of clothing just upped the ante.

ImageValentino, couture, fall 2022.Credit...Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

"For me, more than ever, beauty is power", had- he declared a few days earlier, during a preview in his Paris studio. "I don't want to reflect the ugliness of a world where democracy is denied." His job, he said, was to present an alternative.

But you know: don't tell, show. He did.

In a Rome approaching sunset, celebrity guests and others crowded around their seats taking selfies in a rainbow of Valentino plumage. Anne Hathaway staggered in a fuchsia sequined mini dress and towering platforms from the latest ready-to-wear collection. Andrew Garfield was in a symphony of blue. A woman wore the lime green style that Melania Trump wore on the final night of the Republican National Convention in 2020. At the top of the steps, the Trinità dei Monti church practically shone in the last evening light. Around the square, neighbors clung to their windows to see what was happening.

ImageValentino, Couture, Fall 2022.Credit...Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York Times

Then the models started coming down, over 100 of them , descending the many steps worn smooth after nearly three centuries by the legions that preceded him. Mr. Piccioli had conceived the collection as a conversation between himself and Valentino Garavani, the brand's founder (who retired in 2008 and who, at 90, did not attend the show), told in the language of aesthetics.< /p>

The roses that were one of Valentino's signatures were there, but this time swirled into a three-dimensional puffball on a cropped jumpsuit with sequins. Ditto the steering wheels which, in the hands of Mr. Piccioli, looked more like undulating waves, moving through the air. And the red that has been synonymous with the house - although Mr. Piccioli has expanded the palette to a breathtaking extreme, so plum is associated with chartreuse and white, amethyst with cherry and smoky quartz, a column silver waving with a dash of periwinkle.