Yahoo News Inside Valentino’s Workshop the Night Before the Show (Exclusive)
This is the story of the moment before. Soon they will be wrapped in paper, these clothes made of wind. In a few hours, at night, they will come out, here, in Rome, Italy, from the second floor of a truly beautiful palace, so beautiful that tourists come from all over the world just to take pictures of it. In Rome, we are more cynical and more distracted. We don’t pay attention. For us, these Spanish Steps are just stairs.
This is where I visit the wizard’s workshop. The spot where Pier Paolo Piccioli, Valentino’s creative director since 2008 inspects his creations for one final time before letting them go. In the secret privacy of this small room, he treats them like lovers, these clothes, touching them, feeling the fabric, lingering over a fold, making a slight change here, that looks like nothing but changes everything. Tomorrow all these creations will be gone. Shipped in secret and under tight security, hidden from greedy eyes. (There’ve been cases in the past of knock-offs being made based on a momentary glimpse of an outfit, so now they are carefully covered up during transport.) They will travel in a dedicated truck, in darkness, using code names and signals, like out of a cold war spy thriller. They will cross Italy and the Alps to arrive in Paris, at the Place Vendome, at another atelier, another wizard’s workshop, where they will, for the first time, be shown to the world, and become objects of desire.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Patricia Clarkson in Karlovy Vary: "This Festival Is Just Near and Dear to My Heart"
Chinese Blockbuster 'Lost in the Stars' Set for North American Release (Exclusive)
But not now, for today, for a few moments more, these clothes exist only for those who conceived them, who designed them, who sewed them together. They are still an idea hoping for realization. They still belong to the five seamstresses and the very excited assistants, who for months and months, on the tables, held them, embroidered them. I learned together that seamstresses, the wizard’s fairies in this fairy tale, each have their own special powers. Each one’s hands are different. Each has her own special gift. One’s specialty is lightness, another’s weight. One understands the precision of form, another the dream behind the design. One knows how to make the cloth fly. Another to make it plunge. The same design in a different hand becomes a different object. Everything depends on these hands. It’s well we remember this. These hands, that caress, that embrace, whose touch holds the wisdom of their own life stories, are the hands that bring these creations to life, that make them exist in the world.
I’m scribbling like mad, taking notes because I’m afraid of forgetting these images as soon as they pass my field of vision. How do describe the unexpected enchantment of these clothes, to capture them in worlds before they disappear? That dress looks like a snowfall in the Alps, an avalanche not seen by human eyes. White velvet snow and a red knot, which, inconceivably, it’s just a knot after all, has become a headdress. There: A hundred and fifty yards of silk spin like a ribbon around a body, trembling, vibrating as if the dress were alive. Here: This cloud of feathers which expresses why ancient philosophy describes beauty as fragile and fleeting and the only thing that matters and defines us. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these wizards’ clothes won’t end up in a museum, won’t be markers to tell those who come after us who we were, how we lived. But today that’s what it feels like.
It is still “the moment before.” The wizard is dressed in black. Everyone else is in white. He stands still, observing. The others move quickly, following a choreography repeated for decades. What he does, what he’s trying to do, is to defy gravity, to control the wind, to defy earth’s law. Everything in his performance is about this defiance. He respects the law, of course, but still, he defies it, and finds a way around a loophole.
The Valentino Haute Couture show, for the fall collection, will be held on Wednesday, July 5, at the Château de Chantilly, a 14th-century castle to the north of Paris. The show will be in the garden.
One by one, the seamstresses descend from the atelier to show what they’ve created from the wizard’s drawings. Theirs is an ancient art, the art of embroiderers, weavers, unique and now so very rare. Their creations represent months of work. There is a selection and a hierarchy forms. Some get in, some are taken out. Fitting the chosen dress to the model’s body is a job, solely, for the head seamstress. Only her hands can touch the fabric. The slender, docile girl stands impassively as a cascade of white stones — they must be heavy but somehow seem to defy gravity — is draped overtop. Each dress bears an acronym with the initials of their seamstress: Irene, Antonietta. The dress is fitted. Murmurs of approval. Applause. Then silence as we wait for the decision of the wizard, on whose gaze everything depends. (A few minutes ago, we watched the wizard buy €10 socks from a street vendor. He didn’t have white ones, only black. And the wrong size too. But the wizard bought them anyway, smiling. It’s obvious he’ll never wear them. A moment later, he’s in this realm of silks and velvets. Around his neck hangs a pink coral angel from a dark red ribbon).
You have to understand the space, in this wizard’s workshop. It’s long and narrow. On the sides, pushed against the walls, are long tables stacked with sketches, dozens and dozens of them, more than sixty — the clothes for the collection. On the short side of the rectangle, between two windows that let in the summer light, hangs a very tall mirror. No one is looking in the mirror. No one is staring out the window. Everyone is looking at the wizard.
Opposite the mirror is a door to another room which must lead to another. You can glimpse people beyond the door and a sense of apprehension. They are there, ready to rush in if needed if authorized. He gestures to them, and says “Come in.” But he’s just being polite. He knows they can’t and they won’t. The ritual does not allow it. And here, the ritual is the law. There is still another door, the door to the secret workshop. That’s where the wizard comes from. Inside, where he works, it’s not much compared to the magnificent palace, the immense reception hall, next door. It’s square and quite small but full of wonders. There are a few frames on the wall but more are propped up on the floor or set on pieces of furniture. Framed phrases from people he admires. Several are from Pier Paolo Pasolini, with which the wizard shares his initials, that triple P. He has one of his quotes tattooed on his arm.
The seamstresses arrive. There is Yvan, accent on the “a”, French, of course, wearing a pirate sash and dressed in black. He is the wizard’s alter ego, understanding each other with glances. There are about a dozen people in white coats. This show isn’t for industry, it isn’t for retail. It is more a manifestation of the identity of this community that bears the name of this fashion dynasty.
The model, let’s call her Tania, is a young Ukrainian, a country whose names these days evoke war and sorrow. She’s naked and while waiting for the next dress, instinctively covers her breasts with her arms in a girlish gesture. They dress her in silk velvet, dark red with brocade stars. A jeweled wig rests on the table, a mantle of stones on top of jellyfish hair.
The wizard greets the seamstresses one by one. None of us know their names, so here they are: Irene Stranieri, Antonietta De Angelis (the doyenne, eighty years old, she always wears the same shoes at the ritual: Little pointed black pumps), Alessandra Martini, Floriana Livrieri, Debora Zampa. They, too, are what we call Valentino. The “premieres,” the first seamstresses. They are the ones who worked one hundred and fifty meters of silk to make it lighter than a feather. Who worked cashmere to make it like silk. Who stitched bodices with secret tulle scaffolding, hooks and architecture that hold up these dresses, letting them defy gravity. All these fabrics, like snow, like trembling air, with their invisible borders, all created by these hands. Sequins, sewn one by one, in the thousands. Roses like crowns. They cry sometimes, the seamstresses do, when each model dress is revealed. But they remain composed, their backs straight, a quick gesture to wipe the tear off their cheek.. The wizard always applauds them — “Bravissima!” — even when, gently, he makes a correction: “This one, we could perhaps remove, dig in here, make it lighter. What do you think? Let’s try?”
By now, the wizard’s creations are already in Paris, ready for their debut. Judgments will follow. But that’s not what counts. What counts is the joy on the face of the first seamstress, her tears at that moment. The second and third holding their breath as they face the door. What counts is the silence broken only by Tania’s footsteps. The steely gaze of the model who crosses her arms over her breasts with each change of dress: her fragility counts, her eternity. Ours.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
