Further Valentino

When the video of the Valentino Exhibition finally processed and I played it this morning I realized that the picture was small and that many of the exquisite details of Valentino's designs were lost. So I've uploaded a sideshow at Fickr that can be browsed through at a desired speed. I haven't added much in the way of comments other than identifying the celebrity dresses.

Two things I did notice and several friends who accompanied me to the exhibition remarked on:

• You'd have to be pencil thin verging on anorexic to wear some - well actually almost all - of those dresses.
  
• Some of the more elaborate ones - bead work behinds, coq feathers at the wrists and neck - would be absolute hell to wear. How the hell would you sit in some of them?

14 novembre - San Giocondo

Valentino at 45

Before I arrived in Roma I had this vision of the woman: air and ice - elegant creatures in haute couture and Amalfi coast tans - La Bella Figura. Well I don't see much of that on the number 84 bus in the morning or even at the opera - though I must admit there where some dressed-to-the-nines woman the night we went to the opera at the Baths of Caracella. I realize now they may well have been tourists.

But for five months in late summer and early fall there was a place where feminine elegance was supreme here in Roma. The newly housed Ara Pacis was the venue for a retrospective celebrating 45 years of the fashion style of Valentino.



Visually it was a stunning use of the incredible space that is the Ara Pacis and curators Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfredo created colour groups that had impact and excitement. I honestly couldn't believe that I spent two hours the first visit and over an hour the second looking at an exhibit of haute couture.

Its taken a while to get this video together - mostly because I can't seem to get any music download that Windows Movie Maker finds usable. I know its a little long but there was so much to see and as always I took way to many photographs. Please let me know how it works as I may have to break it down into segments.

13 novembre - San Diego D'Alcalà