*QM and Maison Valentino has curated the exhibition at M7
For people visiting Qatar during FIFA World Cup 2022 and the fashion connoisseurs alike, ‘Forever Valentino’, a major perspective exhibition that pays homage to Valentino’s founder Valentino Garavani and the Maison’s still-unfolding heritage of Haute Couture excellence, couldn’t have arrived at M7 with more poignant timing. Was Valentino Garavani the most intelligent, business-aware designer far ahead of his time in the 1960s? Or is Pierpaolo Piccioli a romantic dreamer who finds relevance in an age set on breaking the constructs of the past, keeping the codes but changing the values?
The answer is both of the above, claims the exhibition itself in a dialogue that is a theatrical curation presented by Qatar Museums and Maison Valentino, as part of Qatar Creates Project. Massimiliano Gioni, the Edlis Neeson Artistic Director at the New Museum, New York, and artistic director of the 55th Venice Biennale, and Alexander Fury, journalist, author, and collector, who is making his curatorial debut, have worked alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli on the exhibit. It’s all about past, present and future and carries on traditions of craft that has been passed down through time at this Roman house. But, rather than using time as curation principle of the exhibition, the focus has been on place: Rome — a city of soul that influences the fashion house to the core. You go in and out of palazzos, squares and courtyards whilst exclusive access to secluded intimate spaces.
You enter the exhibition and you’d be elated to the city of Rome, and not the one you see on Instagram these days, but the actual city inhabited by real people, in particular as a home to the atelier of extravagant flourishes of drapery and haute couture — Valentino. Intricately put together on and on, room by room, with stories that are superimposed on Valentino’s signatures by anyone or anything that inspired Garavani and other all the designers who have passed through the house since his passing: it’s an orgy of gorgeousness.
For people visiting Qatar during FIFA World Cup 2022 and the fashion connoisseurs alike, ‘Forever Valentino’, a major perspective exhibition that pays homage to Valentino’s founder Valentino Garavani and the Maison’s still-unfolding heritage of Haute Couture excellence, couldn’t have arrived at M7 with more poignant timing. Was Valentino Garavani the most intelligent, business-aware designer far ahead of his time in the 1960s? Or is Pierpaolo Piccioli a romantic dreamer who finds relevance in an age set on breaking the constructs of the past, keeping the codes but changing the values?
 Pierpaolo Piccioli |
You enter the exhibition and you’d be elated to the city of Rome, and not the one you see on Instagram these days, but the actual city inhabited by real people, in particular as a home to the atelier of extravagant flourishes of drapery and haute couture — Valentino. Intricately put together on and on, room by room, with stories that are superimposed on Valentino’s signatures by anyone or anything that inspired Garavani and other all the designers who have passed through the house since his passing: it’s an orgy of gorgeousness.