Grisaille is an artistic technique that consists of making a whole painting or drawing in shades of grey and white. As a monochrome, it is an exercise of uttermost concentration. Grisaille as a monochromatic metaphor describes Valentino’s true essence.
Universal pieces such as the white shirt, the shirtdress, the dress, the pencil skirt, the Bermuda shorts in cotton poplin have been reduced to the essence and interpreted with the richness of Couture. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. As permutations follow one after the other like shades multiplying on a grisaille, the color slithers in the craft of jewels, shoes, and accessories.
It is a bright, compact and fluorescent color, immaterial as silk georgette on shapes that have been emptied from the inside letting the body itself become structure. The movement proceeds to bold fauvist prints charged with a narrative urgency, only to slow down and sink again into total white.
Subtraction retains the frenzy and the richness of a whole universe of aesthetic references, just like the noncolor white is ultimately a sum of every color of the spectrum. The journey is now complete and can commence again.
An array of celebrities watched Valentino’s show. Here’s our selection of pictures.
