Valentino A/W 2014

The Valentino show designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli possessed such inordinate beauty that even Mr Valentino himself sprang from his front seat and lauded the designers, who have taken his mantel, with an emotional standing ovation. This was an exceptional show for two designers who have been on a roll over the last few seasons. Today, however, many of their past themes began to coalesce - from lace and long-sleeve dresses to exceptional embroideries and patterned brocades - exploring each with a deeper and more powerful effect. They began their show with a modern graphic punch, using Pop-like rows of circles and half circles over the fronts of short, long-sleeved dresses and sharp capes. The bumpy coloured patterns were printed onto leather, worked into knits and even knotted into the models' hair, which featured extra long ponytails as bulbous as pea pods. Lace has become a Valentino signature and here the duo worked it in ever more elaborate techniques, burying it with butterfly appliqués, floral embroideries and magnificent intarsias that created illustration-like canvases on the clothes. The lines were rigorously elegant and modestly feminine, as usual. Newly charged with a healthy flash of legs were their new micro mini-lengths on signature long-sleeved cut dresses in the first half of the show. But the duo finished off with a never-ending parade of full-length sheer tulle embroidered fantasy gowns, one more fragile in beauty and precious handiwork than the next. The Valentino torch is alive and well and that is something we can all give a standing ovation for.

Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans