Valentino Exhibition

I have taken a trip to Somerset House and the Valentino: Master of Couture Exhibition - open until 3rd March. The exhibition displays dresses and outfits, designed by the house of Valentino, all couture and all very beautiful, stretching from the 1950's through to the 2000's. It displays many couture techniques along with videos of how these techniques are achieved, along with exerts from the Valentino virtual museum, which can be found at http://www.valentinogaravanimuseum.com/

The exhibition showed a total of 130 outfits, and although they each held a beauty that is un-levelled, my eye was drawn to a collection of outfits that displayed some interesting techniques that I would like to experiment with and see if they could be reproduced at high street level. Techniques that can be affordable for the everyday fashion fan.






Valentino's Haute Couture SS08 pale tulle evening suit with small appliquéd origami shapes, embroidered with tiny pink glass beads.

This idea could be assimilated into my designs, look into making muslin origami shapes that could be appliquéd onto outfit.
Look into playing with size and stiffness.








This Valentino dress, from the Haute Couture SS03 collection, has inserted transparent godets and is finished with beading around the arms.
Its an interesting idea to add a little transparency within the dress, this looks very revealing without allowing the wearer to feel naked. I also like the added beads around the arms, it gives a feeling of delicacy and softness, a little detail in a very otherwise simple yet glamorous design
I could use the idea of having a simple design with splashes of detail, this would enable the design to be beautiful and couture inspired yet keeps the cost down and so allows a high street price tag.

www.instyle.com

I like the detail of this Haute Couture Fall/Winter 1992/93 dress, worn by Julia Roberts to the 73rd Academy Awards on March 25th 2001.

The detail on the reverse of the dress is incredible, the idea of the ribbons the cascade down into a fan of material.

This idea could draw in the concept of structure within building scaffolding, it highlights the lines and brings an additional level to the shaping.

I would also like to look into the lines and how this could be used as it sits well with my theme of caging and scaffolding and structure.

This could also be seen in Valentino's Haute Couture SS1993 dress that uses a technique called budellini, which involves coating wool in a skin of chiffon, like long worms or sausages.
This is something I would like to look into using, but with something that has more body than wool. I have had a conversation with my husband and he suggested using windscreen washer tubing, so he has ordered me 3 metres and I will experiment with it, coating it in muslin.

I also like the idea of creating a collection that looks tactile, that has volume and makes you want to feel it.

Fall/Winter 2007/08

Valentino exhibited many outfits that made you want to touch, unfortunately that is out of the question, but that is not to say its not possible to recreate that feeling.
Fall/Winter 2007/08 had a technique called Paigine, which is hundreds of disks made of organza piled to create a pages of a book effect. This is interesting and could work with the edges of the origami squares that I can create.

Fall/Winter 1986/87

 Finally there were dresses that used a technique called Drappeggio, a couture technique with chiffon and crepe sild draped on the bias, the draping is done in gathers, with shades of colour to form a waterfall, rippling water effect.

Spring/Summer 1992

and a technique called 'Tappeto di ruches', which is a couture technique of strips of tulle sewn to a bias fabric to create a flat surface of tightly packed ruffles - (all Couture technique definitions have been taken from the guide book given at the exhibition).

All of these techniques called be experimented with to find a more high street technique, something more affordable.

From this exhibition, I will need to do quite a bit of experimenting and research into fabric properties and how colour will work with different processes