Rome-born Giambattista Valli has called Paris home for 18 years, and its beauty has gotten under his skin. After the terror attacks last November, which he characterized as France’s 9/11, “it was time to say thank you.”
He said it with flowers, his fetish decorative motif, with references to four of the city’s great gardens — Bagatelle, Palais-Royal, Luxembourg and the Tuileries — plus a wink to “Les Soeurs de Napoléon,” a 2013 exhibition at the Marmottan Monet, whose catalogue inspired the Empire silhouette of some of his dresses.
Valli opened his show with his familiar Sixties-flavored shifts, their shoulders and sleeves ringed with organza ruffles; intricate floral embroideries circling the neckline or blooming from the hems. Caped backs added a flourish to some cocktail dresses; sparkly jabots to others.
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The Empire dresses were lovely, with tight bodices hoisting folds of white chiffon, or dreamy nightgown versions with dense, 3-D embroideries clustered around the bodice. For the finale, grand ball gowns made of tiered and pleated tulle were as impractical as couture gets, yet had a frothy charm in their blush colors and weightless appearance.
Backstage, Valli also applauded Paris as the spiritual home of couture, a rarified craft he joined five years ago and clearly relishes. He shares its glories with his atelier, which he pushes to experiment.
Indeed, the workmanship was exquisite, especially on two evening coats in astrakhan; one embroidered with rosebush branches made of mink, and beautiful enough to wear inside out; another with the fur married to macramé that had been embroidered with garlands of flowers and tipped in crystal beads.
As Valli says, only in Paris.