Valentino has always been one of my favourite designers. My mother has a couple of his dresses from the mid Eighties in her closet, and when I was a little girl, I would always sneak in and stroke them with a finger, awestruck by their beauty. I daydreamed about what it would be like to be a grown-up woman and be able to slip into one of those gowns. I imagined going out and looking beautiful and glamourous, everyone unable to tear their eyes off the mysterious woman in the fancy dress.
Fast-forward 18 years, and sadly I find that, as I inherited my figure from my grandmother rather than my mother, those glorious gowns refuse to fit. (I did get the boobs, though.) Still love Valentino, though, so it’s been interesting seeing where Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioliare going with the line. I’m not 100% enthused with what I’ve seen, but I did think there were some definite hits in the A/W 2009-10 collection. Vintage-inspired lace is a swift route to happiness in my book.
Lace sleeves and mask. Love.
Despite my love for vintage lingerie, I tend to be iffy about lingerie-inspired detailing on things, but this dress does it in an original way. I’d wear this in a heartbeat.
I actually am not crazy about this dress, as I find it boring. My opinion might be revised if I saw it one someone possessed of a breast or hip or two, but for now it stands. Not a Gigantic Bow fan. I had to put this up, though, because I am simply in love with this particular mask.
And in that line, the two below are all about the gorgeous headpieces, beautiful though the bodices pictured may be. They’re what I would wear if I were the beautiful but badass spy-heroine of some OTT steampunk novel, attending a ball to stop the heinous, be-monacled Baron von Pfumfenhumfen from realising his plans to unleash his steam-powered minions on the known world. Then, having saved the world with a combination of my brilliance and mad skillz, I would change into the outfit at the very top and stride into the meeting of the International Cabal of Bigwigs and Nabobs, brazenly showing off my anachronistic bare legs, and stun them all into having an iota of sense in their heads, through sheer display of badassery.
Ahem. Reality check. Purty hat-veil-thingmabobs. And bodices. Yes, purty bodices too.
Agyness Deyn (I hate writing out her name) wearing House of Holland’s Anna Piaggi shirt. I’m hoping Deyn is wearing the flower hat as an homage to Piaggi and not of her own volition, else I might have to smack her.
