June, 25th, 2014

PARIS | MODE MASCULINE SS 2015 | VALENTINO
Hapax Existentiel

“I am not interested in deconsecrating: this is a fashion I hate, it is petit-bourgeois. I want to reconsecrate things as much as possible, I want to re-mythicize them.”
Pier Paolo Pasolini

In their style, poetry and collections, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli championed the damned existentialists, mingling an intellectual grasp with a fierce reality to wradrobe our next season. From Kerouac, Cocteau, to Odilon Redon, VALENTINO celebrates the freedom of expression by mastodons of taste and intelligence. Of course, the beloved Pier Paolo Pasolini took part in this quest. After the Spring 2014 Ready-To-Wear homage to Pasolini’s Medea which draws Maria Callas in her only film role, a commanding Spring Summer 2015 menswear collection was showcased in the salons of Hotel Salomon de Rothschild in Paris for the first day of Mode Masculine PE 2015.

In defining the shape evolving human Valentino, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli look this season for Mannerists who are placed outside movements, groups, schools; authors for whom innovation and spontaneous gesture are authentic, not borghese. All these refined minds embrace the effortless masculinity, but also the subtle taste of silent sedition, and synthesize them into a phrasing of renewed softness, yet in another style in which fashion and thought, fluidly, are a tool to sculpt the identity of the I. Couture, sideways, supports and defines the search for uniqueness.

Dominated by a sense of mastered relaxation, moved by the energy of the whole mix, the silhouettes of precise volumes conveyed the soft and the loose on the runway. Long polo shirts are worn under the suit nonchalantly. Accumulations of geometric prints, most of which reminded me of Ol’Chevignon ducks, are mixed with psychedelic lines, bestiaries, landscapes, flowers, and continents. The idea of the uniform, ancestry military and utilitarian set, suggests a tactful man, all translated in the choice of delicate materials.

The savoir-faire of Haute Couture, masculinized, insinuates itself everywhere, producing shifts and changes: brocades Camubutterfly, swarm of field jackets and army-inspired garments; light coats are double knitted and profiled in leather; even the white shirts are made from very fine wool, in a constant search for firmness without weight. The stratification, authentic blend of formal and sports pieces, in the awareness that interventions are millimetric to upset the overall balance, lead to a genuine freshness.

Naturalness pervades the eclectic choice of materials: raw silk shantung, blends of viscose, brocades, chambray, canvas cashmere and silk, barathea the masculine hand.

The colors are organic: stone, ruby​​, mint, sky blue, sand. Sneaker viscose jacquard techniques soles, big soles thick lace, brocade soft bags and then enameled brooches grasp a free thought: “Reality, with a dash of magic.”

I like existentialism.

I believe that existentialism, not pessimism, is what Fashion needs right now.

Optimism has never left. Symbolism too.

ALESSANDRO BERGA | L’ÉDITOR

Photos : VALENTINO