Valentino’s Next Generation: Fall 2010 Couture

Former Fendi bag designers and Valentino accessories team Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli showed “The Dark Side of First Love,” their fourth couture collection as the head designers for Valentino this week in Paris to mixed reviews {The Cut}. The pair, who took over at the helm for Valentino Garavani in 2008, has had their share of bad press, alternating between boring critics with same-old, same-old Valentino couture collections and shocking the public with outrageous departures from the label’s essence, including fancy T-shirts priced between $300 and $3,000 and a futuristic couture show splattered with neon.

Too young for Couture?

Bloggers and editors saw elements of inspiration from Twilight in the most recent collection – which was fittingly opened by the new face of the brand, Freja Beha Erichsen – but no agreement on whether that is a good or bad thing seems to have surfaced. WWD felt the clothes were beautiful but too youthful for a couture line and the Telegraph thought the collection was more confident and signature to the new designers, while Style.com admits the pitch to a younger audience was peculiar but perhaps genius. {The Cut}

Or too Boring?

Style.com may have hit the nail on the head, as luxury fashion labels have attempted to keep their footing of late by reaching out to Generation Y. The looks may also come to symbolize a new era for Valentino.

The youthful slant to the collection is smart, but there are too many dropped waistlines and bows for our taste and the clothes are a bit bland, a kiss of death for haute couture, which we look to for the kind of over the top fantasy that would be out of place in ready to wear collections. The blah-ness of it is ironic considering the collection departs from their more typical Valentino lines, which critics found boring as well. Nothing is terribly wrong with the collection – the sheer hoop dress looks like a toned down take on Lady Gaga’s Grammy dress, but it looks like Chiuri and Piccioli are light years away from wowing like John Galliano’s flower-inspired masterpiece for Dior did earlier in the week.