A lta C o u tu re - Nadine Strittmatter

Pre-show paparazzi practically knock us down as we followed Giancarlo Giammetti walking Anne Hathaway in a whirl into the Valentino Haute Couture show, stagedin the splendor of the Rothschild mansion. Inside, perched on gilded Louis XVI chairs, we enter an era of Tsarist indulgence – a mesh tulle dream dress sewn withthousands of pearls that took 1,200 hours of workmanship to complete; a hammered gold coat that cost $50,000 just to make. Homage to Irfe, the 20’s fashionhouse of Prince Felix Yusupov – the assassin of Rasputin – and his wife Irina Romanov, niece of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, this was a tour de force of romantic opulence.A perfect stylistic reverie by Valentino’s Roman couturiers Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri. Rome only ever meets St Petersburg in Paris couture.To the right, Jean Paul Gaultier as a blood red Diaghilev, the Russian ballet impresario who died, fittingly for this season, in Venice.