Pierpaolo Piccioli’s haute couture collection, held on the grand grounds of the Château de Chantilly was simply divine. “Simplicity is complexity resolved,” he said at the press conference, quoting artist Constantin Brancusi, whose sculptures are the modernist epitome of absolute purity. Piccioli called the show “Un Château.” “It’s somehow paradoxical to show in an historical site that I believe is a metaphor for status and power, a symbolism that has to be questioned and re-contextualized,” he said.

It was visual performance, models walked around one of the castle’s vast parterres à la Francaise; the catwalk sneaked around a circular bassin d’eau, leaving in the background the elegant silhouette of the 17th century manor.

Couture is repetitive, it is complex, yet it is easy on the eyes. Piccioli, whose hyper-skilled atelier can bring to life even the most maddeningly elaborate artifacts, believes on the contrary that the essence of couture is profoundly simple.

The draping, the purity, the essential silhouettes with modernity, Valentino’s aesthetic is now column dresses, tunics, bodices with skin-baring cut-outs extending into a frame that is undeniably luxurious and space provoking.