Valentino has tapped the industry’s most-loved stylists for a series of unique interpretations of its new Spring/Summer 2023 collection.
Enlisting the creative expertise of Law Roach, Anna Dello Russo, Rebecca Corbin-Murray, Clement Lomellini, Lorenzo Posocco, Mix Wei, Geum Nam Hwang, Masataka Hattori, and design duo Grandquist — comprised of Alexandra and Mackenzie — the brand aims to encourage limitless exploration, impulse, and execution. Within the new campaign, each stylist offers their response through a window display situated in the city where they create.
Maison Valentino celebrates the essential spark that leads to the flowering of many blooms. This is #UnboxingValentino, the collection from the Creative Director Pierpaolo Piccioli (@PPPiccioli) for Spring/Summer 2023 that takes deconstruction as the basis for a wholly new creative construct. Unboxing is the concept that has brought forth this profoundly empowering collection, which activates – like a game of pass the parcel – nine interpretations by brilliant stylists to unfurl around the world and online.
Adding up to the individual window displays, there will be in-store activations including styling sessions with an abundance of talented stylists. These sessions will take place in multiple cities on top of the above, offering the opportunity to explore more of the Unboxing Valentino collection in person. In addition, a chat experience created in partnership with GameOn Technology, that powers authentic conversational experiences, uses AI to enable a whole new way to discover more about the collection and the activations for those at home, creating dynamic social interactions regardless of location.
Unboxing Valentino removes the inessential. The collection powers its ever-expanding creative community through these simultaneous, worldwide window activations, creating a global conversation from a single word. Unboxing makes the statement that the beauty of the individual is realized through the power of attention, unleashed by creative precision and insight, and passed from person to person.
In Shanghai , Mix Wei (@mix626) honors traditional Chinese painting, in which only five colors are used to conjure a vast diversity of natural expressions. This window will incorporate Chinese painting through scrolls printed with the Valentino Toile Iconographe hanging from the ceiling, while five looks stand before them representing the essential materials from which all visual art is created. Complexity is broken down into the purest idea: the singular elements that make up the worlds of art and creation, represented in single colors.
Geum Nam Hwang (@geumnam) titles her Seoul installation “Unbox Me”. The puzzle of the Soma Cube, a reinterpreted transparent block that fits together, functions as a metaphor for the way that the individual is a composite of disassembled elements. Pale, neutral shades provide a moment of calm in the midst of the city, while Valentino Garavani pieces rest atop Soma shapes, inviting every viewer to dismantle what they know of themselves in the pursuit of the essential within.
Rebecca Corbin-Murray’s (@rebeccacorbinmurray) concept takes inspiration from the black runway look with yellow 3D flowers, and in the window in London, projected yellow flowers form the backdrop for all-black looks, inviting contrast between the essential silhouette and the vibrancy of blooming.
This window will capture nature’s unboxing, represented by yellow – the color of the sun, buttercups and the hearts of flowers but a bridge to the complex energies of the psychedelic psyche.
Across the channel, Clement Lomellini (@clementlomellini) brings Unboxing to Paris. Bright shades create a dynamic display, while the Valentino Toile Iconographe pattern draws attention to the naturally repeating. Black gowns with selective cut-outs and see-through fabrics force an awareness of the body as made up of disparate yet continuous elements. The mannequins appear through a torn paper backdrop, staging the drama of a physical unboxing, the act of tearing the paper from the object you just can’t wait any longer to open.
Masataka Hattori (@masataka_hattori) creates a natural enclave in the streets of Tokyo , in his staging of the relationship between the natural and the constructed. By combining natural, earth-toned looks with Valentino Layers giving a sense of the modern and light, Masataka ushers in a sense of natural beauty. This homage to trees, stones and sand is a paean to the raw materials from which sensibility springs.
In New York, Law Roach (@LuxuryLaw) unfolds his interpretation through a striking space, a box characterized by a deep totalizing red which becomes a real-life manifestation of the Unboxing concept. An homage to Mr. Valentino’s SS 1992 campaign as captured by #StevenMeisel, Law will also cover a vintage car with the Valentino Toile Iconographe pattern, in a demonstration of its versatility – and velocity.
In Milan , Lorenzo Posocco (@lorenzoposocco) incorporates everyday scenes into the display of the iconic boutique on Via Montenapoleone, capturing the relationship between the street scenes that pass by the windows every day and the becalmed world of the store within. Cities are formed of such a cross-pollination, charging the looks with purpose and relevance. By placing a cubed video screen showing street scenes of Milan inside the display, Lorenzo invites viewers into a reality where the exalted world of fashion meets the intimacy of the everyday in an homage to the energy of the city.
Cool aquamarine and gold create the feel of a fish tank in Dubai, where Anna Dello Russo (@annadellorusso) employs color block and a profusion of Valentino Garavani accessories to manifest a sense of abundance; feathers, fluff, gloves and bags paint the mannequins like tropical fish, creating a limpid window from the street into a bright and beautiful world. Fantasy reigns supreme in this display, inviting passers-by to slip off their shoes and dive right in.
To allow everyone regardless of location to discover the #UnboxingValentino collection for themselves, styling duo Alexandra and Mackenzie Grandquist, (@makkaroo – @rosegrandquist) created this digital display that features mannequins suspended on elevated triangular platforms in a backdrop of intense red, the color that expresses Valentino’s purest essence and calls back to its very beginning.