Freedom: That’s a concept that should resonate with Zayn Malik, one of the guests at the Valentino men’s show, as he contemplates his future post-One Direction.
The label’s designers, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, drew inspiration from Bruce Chatwin’s classic travel account “The Songlines” for their ode to wanderers.
A mash-up of cultural markers was reflected by the mood board backstage, which juxtaposed Marlon Brando with psychedelic teens. A common thread was the idea of customization, from the Asian souvenir jackets brought back by military personnel after World War II to the denim patchwork born from the Sixties counterculture.
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The latter was given the luxe treatment on a coat made from artfully assembled panels of frayed denim. Taking it up an extra notch, Valentino’s couture atelier worked pristine indigo denim into a coat, using the white markings of the selvage as decorative piping. Even faded jeans featured heat-bonded inner seams.
Embroidery added an individual touch to military and workwear staples, whether camouflage shirts trimmed with ethnic motifs or a peacoat teeming with imaginary animals, including a prancing unicorn.
“We want to describe the new men as new people, not with genders, with stereotypes,” said Piccioli. “[It’s about finding] your own balance between heritage and your memories and your sensibility.”
Indeed, nostalgia weighed heavy in an array of casual looks that seemed plucked straight from the hallways of a high school – down to the slouchy leather studded backpacks. Were they aimed at wealthy Millennials, or men seeking to recapture the lost innocence of their teens?
Piccioli suggested this type of segmentation was a thing of the past. “Contemporaneity is about high and low, it’s about different cultures crossing together. This is tolerance,” he concluded.