Another goodbye, but this time a less lugubrious one. 
After 45 years in fashion, Valentino took his final bow at his swan song couture show in Paris yesterday.
According to WWD,
Valentino said goodbye to fashion with relative discretion at a stellar show at the Musée Rodin. "We are very serene, very happy," he had said on Monday. And, indeed, when he took that last walk down the runway after a 45-year run at fashion's highest reaches, he maintained his composure as his audience jumped to its collective feet in wild appreciation.
He did elegant, he did glamorous, he did romantic, he did chic. And he ended with sublime, sending a parade of models swathed in identical silk column dresses, all in his signature red.
Talk about going out in a blaze of glory!
When I worked as fashion editor at a now-defunct Hong Kong glossy, I attended the Paris fashion shows for a couple of seasons, wide-eyed, bewildered, but enthralled and completely unmindful of being ushered into the 10th row or so with the rest of the Asian fashion press, way behind the US and European editors and a row or two behind the Japanese, but ahead of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis. I wasn't just a small fish in a vast ocean, I was a sardine thrilled to be tightly packed into a glittering tin. To my regret, I never attended a Valentino show. I believe in those days he was still showing couture in Rome, and prêt-a-porter in Milan.
Already then, in 1990, Valentino was a legend in fashion, and was celebrating 30 years in the industry. The Valentino press office had sent me a book, Valentino: Thirty Years of Magic, commemorating the event.
The Gerry Dryansky quote at the frontispiece of the book sums up the magic of Valentino beautifully:
"And a work of beauty stands firm as a work of beauty, no matter which way the wind is blowing."
As gorgeous as Valentino's clothes are, they always struck me as being for grown-ups, the sort I'd wear when I was more adult, more established, more tai-tai. My mother wore a navy and cream linen Valentino suit to my brother's wedding in 1986 - and she was 45 then, an age I'm fast approaching. Yet somehow, even after two children and a pretty awesome, multifaceted career, I feel I still don't merit a Valentino suit. The Chanel suits are a different story; I had to be dressed in them when I worked there eight years ago.
But I have to admit, I do feel grown-up enough to slink into a room wearing nothing but a silky red Valentino gown...
(Photo lifted from Jezebel)
Comments