Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, creative directors at the house of Valentino, form a solid, unbreakable couple, even if only in professional terms. They’ve been working together since they met, and immediately clicked, at Fendi in 1989. Their creative dialogue is fuelled by mutual trust, complementary tastes and a great deal of sincerity and ease. “I am a very loyal person,” laughs Chiuri, all smoky eyes and bursting emotionality. Piccioli has the nonchalant demeanor of a true Roman—he never seems to register stress—and an insatiable curiosity. He lives in Nettuno, a coastal town not far from the città eterna, and proudly enjoys the detoxifying balms of provincial life.
While many of their peers seem to share their time only with celebrities and fashionistas, MG and PP, as they are affectionately called by their entourage, have a life beyond fashion, centred around their families and children. They enjoy living in Rome, far from the glitz and superficiality of Milan, and they value hard work. “As creative directors, we have a tremendous amount of responsibility on our shoulders,” Chiuri says gravely. “The previous generation, of the [house’s] founders, was not less busy, but they were the owners of their respective houses, which gave them a lot more room to manoeuvre. For us, the diktat is to succeed with every single collection. We live under constant pressure.” She displays no overt anxiety, however. Nor does Piccioli.
Their studio is on the first floor of the Palazzo Mignanelli, a 16th-century residence a stone’s throw from the Spanish Steps. The building has housed the company practically since it was founded, in 1960. Chiuri and Piccioli share one enormous desk, facing one another, and chat endlessly. Piles of books surround them. They are as easygoing with their staff as they appear in public, but never miss a detail. They joined the company in 1999, hired by Valentino himself to design accessories. Their work was immediately lauded and they gained the trust of both the hyper-demanding maestro and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti. When Valentino retired in 2007, they were named creative directors of accessories, and shortly afterwards, of the house itself, including womenswear, menswear and couture.
Slowly but steadily, Chiuri and Piccioli initiated a seismic shift in the once-staid Valentino landscape, bringing in contrasts, contaminations and a sense of the contemporary. For them, tradition and innova-tion mingle into the idea of a new future. “Modernity, for us, does not mean burning down the house,” they say, their words overlapping. “It does not mean erasing Valentino’s trademark red, but making a red that is close to our sensibility, so to speak.” The rave reviews of the womenswear shows, not to mention success at the tills, speak for themselves.
The process was less straightforward, however, with menswear. “The Valentino man, in the collective memory, was Valentino himself,” Chiuri recalls. “The tanned, coiffed, double-breasted bon viveur with countless dogs, a castle, a yacht and an army of socialites all around.” “There really wasn’t an identity,” Piccioli clarifies. “We reverted to Valentino’s debut collection in Florence, an all-white, stream- lined effort that is still as modern today as it was back then. It was women’s, but the spirit could be relevant for men’s as well.”
To build an identity, they started from scratch. They decided they liked the Valentino man suited. “A suit with a tie is a supremely individualist choice, as far from the uniform as it possibly gets,” Piccioli says provocatively, knowing full well that young men the world over would disagree, at least until initiated into the charms of one of Piccioli’s suits. Images of Dolce Vita debauchery come to mind, when movie stars fought paparazzi in their tailored jackets— natural and nonchalant, but with an edge.
Chiuri and Piccioli are equally averse to both overly manicured sophistication and scruffy yet hip laissez-faire. “There is so much more elegance in not caring than in posing like a dandy,” he says. “This is why our idea of contemporary style is closer to the cleanness of the 1960s than to the pomp and circumstances of the 1980s.” This does not mean they are nostalgic, however. “Nostalgia is paralysing,” she adds. “We belong to today. We believe that innovation comes from memory.” Couture is their byword, even when they mix it with constructions and solutions taken from sportswear or further afield, and the result is warm, direct and intensely luxurious.
As modernists, Chiuri and Piccioli love limitations: they enjoy doing more with less. “The Valentino men is averse to showing off,” Chiuri says. “He appreciates those little details that make the difference, but keeps them all for himself.” It is quite a departure from that tanned, coiffed past, and harks back to the iconic Roman days of the modern age: the 1960s, suited, high on testosterone and bravado. The Valentino man is as classy and nonchalant as a young Marcello Mastroianni, but he lives in fast-forward. It’s just another way to marry tradition with innovation.
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ALL CLOTHES VALENTINO; PHOTOGRAPHY BY VASSILIS KARIDIS; FASHION BY NICHOLAS GEORGIOU; MODELLED BY ROMAIN SERGENT AT SUCCESS MODELS