In the midst of a colorful Paris Fashion Week, Valentino stood out.
The Italian fashion house, which has become synonymous with a bright pink hue in recent years, made the bold decision to present an all-black collection.
The collection was called Le Noir, which means black in French. Creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli clearly demonstrated that you don't need vibrant colors on the catwalk to present an interesting collection.
The brand wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “This season, Pierpaolo reconsiders Valentino through the lens of the color black, representing an entire spectrum of shades, infinitely nuanced, within one.”
The autumn/winter 2024 show opened with a minidress that had strong eighties-inspired shoulders, a trend that has emerged again and again this season, also seen at the Alexander McQueen and Saint Laurent shows.
To keep the collection interesting, Piccioli played with silhouettes and materials. Shift dresses had puffed sleeves, some models walked in stiff 1950s-inspired skirts, and Matrix-style long coats gave a futuristic element to the ceremony.
Chiffon fluttered down the catwalk as models walked, contrasting with feathered skirts, leather gloves and sequined jackets.
Handbags are the Valentino brand's bread and butter, and this season they came in all shapes and sizes, from small clutches to large travel bags, studded with silver hardware.
Even the beauty look played into the theme of making black exciting, with some models sporting ultra-glossy black lips and others wearing reverse cat-eye makeup.
This isn't the first time Valentino has chosen an extreme approach to color. For the brand's fall/winter 2022 collection, models wore one of two things: a strikingly bright fuchsia shade or all-black.
It wasn't just any shade of pink, but a specific shade that Piccioli came up with in collaboration with Pantone, called Valentino Pink PP. It began flooding red carpets, becoming a Valentino signature, and it seems Piccioli is eager to change things up once again.
Speaking about his obsession with monochromatic colors in 2022, he told AnOther Magazine: “Monochromatic artists used to paint everything in one color to give visibility to other things. To deliver different things, different emotions.
“For me it's like a black and white illustrated book, after one chapter you understand it. And you go deeper into the surface, the hands, the expression, the emotion. So I wanted to use a color to highlight the idea of fashion as cut, design, silhouette, shape, volumes. Patterns, textures. You are forced to see more.”
It's true: the all-black collection made you strain to see the small details of the outfits, of which there were many.
There were plenty of Valentino signatures, from sheer chiffon to lots of lace and rosette details, and some newer elements for the brand, like the sculptural shapes contrasting some of the ethereal materials.
According to Valentino, “black is not a color of sobriety but of exuberance, a tone that offers a rebellion to romance.”
This romantic element was reflected in the show's location, an 18th-century mansion in Paris called the Hotel de Maisons.
While Bridgerton star Simone Ashley was on theme, dressed in baggy black shorts and a matching oversized tuxedo jacket, it wasn't an entirely somber front row.
Former tennis player Serena Williams wore a plum-colored shift dress with a white bird print and feather cuffs.
Model and beauty founder Rosie Huntington-Whiteley played with muted tones, wearing a gray swimsuit with plenty of gold jewelry.
