For spring/summer 2024, the house found “a moment to redefine an identity of men”

To attempt that redefinition, Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli started with a clean slate—the proverbial white canvas. The first look was pristine that way: a single tone of white from the neck to about ten centimetres above the knee (clutch, and socks and shoes were the opposite: black), so much so, that the shirt, the tie, the blazer, and the shorts appeared to have come from the same vat of bleach and brightener. Further down the line-up, the tone-on-tone was achieved with colours, such as one unmistakable “Valentino pink”, as influencers might call it. But it is in the all-whites that the suggestion of innocence and purity was evident. Have men lost all of those two qualities that their identity needed re-definition? There was also a preppy, collegiate vibe about the opening segment. Could the learning years be the time when men begin the process of re-defining themselves as they launch themselves from the threshold of adulthood?

The questions are pertinent when considering where Valentino staged the show this season: In a school (it seems that fashion presentation on the grounds of an educational institution [or former] is a trend), the public university of La Statale (also known as the University in Milan), housed in historic buildings considered important to the city. Students could be seen standing on the corridors watching the show unfold in a massive central courtyard, which also had the American indie-rap artiste d4vd (pronounced David, as in his birth name David Anthony Burke) perform his brand of easy-listening pop. And similarly, easy-on-the-eyes were the relaxed separates that Mr Piccioli showed—the foundational garments Valentino possibly hoped to get the otherwise streetwear-bent male students started on.

The collection, named “The Narratives” and built on a predominance of shirt-and-shorts combo (with the occasional skirt thrown in) “re-examine(s) a meaning of masculinity, to discover a new, modern perspective”, according to the show notes. This assumed that men still want to stick to wearing the pieces they are familiar with (except, perhaps, those skirts). Mr Piccioli did not reinvent the sartorial wheel, but he did explore what could be done within the confines of ‘traditional’ clothing. He kept the shapes simple and details within somewhat spare. One decorative idea: A stalk of flower (rose?), its very long stem rising from the middle of the hem of the left front panel of a coat and the full bloom positioned on the left chest, where a brooch might be pinned. The same idea was applied right in the centre of a shirt, the stem of the flower forming the piping of the edge of the placket, and the bloom sited right between the buttoned collar, where a bow or cravat would be fastened. If flowers are really your chamomile infusion, there were oversized petals across chests or, in the case of one jacket, a single blossom taking the space of the more than half its front, including one sleeve.

As much as we were fascinated with the single, long-stemmed flower adding a soft counterpoint to menswear (but which label isn’t softening up?), the idea was, in fact, already adopted by Prada, although it was for their women’s spring/summer 2013 (and the stems, while long, were not so lengthened). Talking about Depeche Mode, the band’s 1990 album Violator also featured a single stalk of flower on the cover, designed by Anton Corbijn and Richard Smith at Area. Another detail that could be interpreted better was something the Japanese had already done—text in paragraph form on garment. Valentino applied the neatly laid-out, flushed-left sentences on the chest of a shirt and a blazer, as well as the right leg of a pair of faded jeans. The wording might be different, but the idea was, at the risk of sounding pedantic, not novel, and less so if the collection was to “redefine” whatever Valentino saw required the exercise. The brand said that “transformed contexts can shift perception”. That, to us, was not immediately discernible.

Screen shot and photos: Valentino