Valentino Spring / Summer 2016

PARIS — Tuesday afternoon in the Tuileries was momentous in nearly every respect from clothing to presentation, but when speaking about Maison Valentino that is simply to say the obvious. If last season’s Valentino fixture was a victory in the public relations category with Derek and Hansel doing the rounds on the runway, the points earned smothered rightful plaudits for the collection itself. This season, however the emphasis returned solely to the clothes that express a “totemic and primordial grace.” Yes, there is a reference in the collection notes to “tribal Africa,” but that discussion is best left to the cultural anthropologists. To put the Spring / Summer 2016 runway show’s magnitude in perspective in another way wholly germane to this page, simply consider the numbers. Fourteen models at Next including Yana Van Ginneken, Julia Fleming, Lineisy Montero, Liza O, Vera Van Erp, Nirvana Naves, Piene Burgers, Binx, Cecilie Moosgaard, Grace Hartzel, Amalie Moosgaard, Maja Salamon, Gaby Loader, and Olivia Jansing featured on the runway. There were 89 total looks in designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s women’s ready-to-wear collection of which the aforementioned 14 models wore 27 of the looks, or a little north of 30% of the collection. This show like the morning’s earlier casting at Chanel and others over the past week in Paris, and weeks previous in Milan and London, and where the season began, New York. What a season at Next this has been and yet there is