No can deny that Pierpaolo Piccioli is a “woke” designer. The multi-cultural and multi-generational casts on his recent runway shows prove he knows the value of diversity and that fashion can benefit a lot when it highlights different kinds of style and beauty. In fact, Picciolo took his “wokeness” up a notch when he presented Red Valentino’s Pre-Fall 2019 Collection. The lookbook showed the clothes worn by different art students, of all shapes, colors, and sizes, from across the globe. In these images, one can see how the attitude of the wearer can impact how the clothes ultimately look. Inspired by the concept of Black Swan—a good girl gone bad—the pieces explore the disparity between frou-frou (femininity) and tailoring (masculinity). Usually, femininity is more seen as angelic while masculinity is perceived to be more sinister, but Picciolo turned such concepts upside-down. Most of the frou-frou pieces here, such as the tulle skirts, lace-paneled dresses, and polka-dotted frocks, were made in black similarly to how a Black Swan ballet costume would look like. While the tailoring, like the strawberry pink coat or double-breasted houndstooth jacket, exhibited more innocence. Still, it’s up to who buys and wears these pieces if they’ll be good or bad, but whichever they choose to be, at least they’ll still be well-dressed.
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Photo: Courtesy of Red Valentino
