Valentino puts a daring new-season spin on after-dark dressing

Valentino has long-been renowned for its almost otherworldly femininity. Yet, this season, the Italian creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli has swapped the delicate for the daring, injecting a raw, punkish energy into the brand’s house codes – with pieces that feel fresh and fun for the forthcoming party season, as our social calendars start to fill up with after-dark events.

Since taking over the sole helm of the Valentino maison in 2016, Piccioli has made it his mission to take the essence of the house codes and reinterpret them for contemporary, urban wardrobes – and, this season, that pursuit is perfectly executed. Frills (which have become something of a signature design detail for the brand since its inception in Rome in 1960 by Valentino Garavani) have been subverted for FW21 and turned into delicate blouse-detailing on micro dresses – creating a refined mix of polish and punk.

Inspired by the energy of society’s reopening and the return of iconic cultural hubs, Piccioli took that new-found spirit and channeled it into the new collection – hemlines, typically sweeping and diaphanous, were instead chopped off with an energetic zeal. The slick motion of scissors slicing through fabric felt radical to the designer, who describes it as a “brutal shortening” of his signature silhouettes. Pants were cropped above the hem, an ideal trans-seasonal length, while frilled skirts were slashed high on the thigh. Towering heels will complete the look for a season of dinners and dancing.

Invigorated by this sense of youthful defiance, Piccioli put the brand’s typical confectionary hues on hold this season, opting instead for a stark monochromatic palette – think black woolen overcoats, crisp white shirts and sleeveless sweaters. In typical Valentino fashion, however, these everyday pieces still hold an air of romance. Coats are cut with cape-like sleeves that could be derived from a fairy tale, while turtleneck sweaters (a FW21 staple) are woven from a laser-cut wool covered in delicate holes.

And, this season, the brand’s renowned Valentino Garavani Rockstud style really comes into its own. First introduced on T-bar stilettos, the edgy look is available across the brand’s Valentino Garavani accessories, featuring on everything from sneakers to ballet pumps – even micro handbags (the ideal dance-floor partners) have been decorated with studs that feel tough, tactile and simultaneously sensual.

Such practical, polished pieces will prove worthy wardrobe allies as temperatures fall, seamlessly taking you from business to bar and beyond. Radicalism rooted in the everyday – rebellious indeed.