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| Photographed by Mimi Ritzen Crawford |
“You look extraordinary!” Valentino Garavani says when principal dancer Ana Sophia Scheller emerges from a dressing room swathed in pointed tiers of lace tulle. The details are unmistakably the hand of the master couturier, and when Scheller lifts the skirt to reveal a pop of Valentino red beneath the layers, it’s confirmed.
The team in the New York City Ballet costume shop, tucked away in the Rose Building in Lincoln Center, look up to admire the work, and Director of Costumes Marc Happel brings out a freshly constructed bodice, ready to be pinned with Valentino’s selections of intricate lace. Tonight, sixteen original Valentino designs will make their onstage debut at the ballet’s fall gala. The finale, “Bal De Couture,” a world premiere choreographed by NYCB’s ballet master-in-chief Peter Martins, is a piece by Tchaikovsky, who is Valentino’s favorite composer.
The two settled on the music when Martins visited Paris to see Valentino’s sketches. A man who can see instantly what he wants to design, Valentino drew only 30 sketches to get his perfect sixteen. “What you see now, I drew it seven months ago,” the designer says. “I told Peter I would love to do some black-and-white, white-and-black, very graphic.
And of course I wanted to put some red inside because it’s Valentino red. I love the surprise of the color inside.”
Bringing couture details to the ballet is the task at hand, so he picks up a pin and begins placing lace. Happel brings out the bodice’s matching skirt. “Look at the profile of this dress!” Valentino says, and you can imagine every four-year-old girl in New York fainting at the sight of all that tulle, arranged perfectly into a teacup-shaped cloud: classic ballerina. The intended wearers trickle in for fittings after their rehearsal, wearing leotards with neon zippers and matching electric-colored Nike sneakers, which is less classic ballerina but definitely cool. “I am waiting for two leaves!” Valentino says, holding out his hand, and when the leaves are set, he looks at the tulle trim. “We don’t need the second layer,” he says. The Emperor has spoken.
“One thing that’s quite amusing is that they all have red shoes,” he says. “Usually they’re nude.” Did he wink? With a small hop, he takes a seat on a large ironing table. Though Valentino officially retired from fashion in 2008, it’s clear he’s still comfortable in the studio, and the ballet promises to be as breathtaking as a haute couture show. “The workmanship, the idea of the stripes, the result of the hand-done top where I put this ruffle, the masks with little beads—these are things that maybe people who are completely out of fashion, they don’t realize, but if somebody loves fashion, loves couture, they see it. They see that everything is perfectly done, with lots of little secrets.”
Photographed by Mimi Ritzen Crawford “You look extraordinary!” Valentino Garavan i sa...
