106 Model walked the runway at the Valentino Fall 2009 haute couture show in Paris on Wednesday, July 8, 2009. It was an elegant visual dissertation on the art of haute couture Things were looking up at Valentino. Its new design duo, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli forged a sexy new look for the mythic Italian label. Out went the ladylike day coats and tasteful A-line cocktail dresses in jewel toned duchess silk; in came the second-skin bodice dresses in flesh-colored tulle and black lace; and up, way up, went the hemlines.
Valentino’s joint creative directors took a bold step in establishing their own aesthetic for this famed label using many of the house’s codes like lace, semi-sheer and lingerie as luxury, Chiuri and Piccioli, who tried out some new concepts, including way-over-the-top booties with giant leather back fins or some faintly absurd balloon ball gowns in weird sculpted shapes. The duo also have a subtle sense of how to stage their own collections, reinforcing the after-midnight romantic mood with giant screens on which were projected smoke whirls.
Piccioli and Chiuri also broke new ground with the color palette – banished from their catwalk was the signature sinful red for which Valentino was famed. Even the fabric roses were all black or muddiest brown.
The new design team aimed to seduce a younger, hipper clientele with a racy tulle and lace collection that projected the Valentino woman out of the past and into fashion’s future. Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, for their first two collections delivered up couture and prêt-a-porter collections. That were "more Valentino than Valentino," full of gorgeous-but-dated coats and dresses embellished with oversized bows and roses.
This time around, however, Piccioli and Chiuri swapped stateliness for sexiness, delivering bustier in nude tulle with panels of black peek-a-boo lace and thigh-skimming skirts. Highlights of Valentino Fall 2009 haute couture show included a floor-length gown made from tufts of black tulle, worn over a beige bustier. It pulsed with an almost aquatic delicacy, like a rare, light-fearing sea anemone. A strapless bodice of black bands sprouted a mammoth bow in the back, like the folded wings of a newly hatched moth.
Piccioli and Chiuri said their previous collections were based on memory – the storied label’s history – while this one was based on an image they themselves had conjured.
"This time, it’s maybe more about soul than memory," Piccioli told the press in a backstage interview.