Valentino’s New Campaign Revives the Maison’s Toile Iconographe

At the Unboxing Valentino Spring/Summer 2023 show, the first look packed a striking punch. One model, swathed in a beige, caped dress, appeared to disappear directly into it; the dress, as well as her face, disclosed the high graphic impact VLogo. This monogrammed, rippling pattern was to appear in black and red throughout the collection, on Valentino Garavani gloves, tights, bags, shirts, and again, faces (courtesy of legendary make-up artist Pat McGrath).

“The logo is alphabet and word,” read a statement from the maison. “The logo is space and architecture. The logo is beauty and culture.” Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli is a maximalist at heart – just think of the larger-than-life, vibrantly coloured dresses at the house’s emotional haute couture shows – yet the VLogo managed to appear both minimalist and maximalist all at once, with its clean edges and absorbing nature.

Now, with the launch of the Valentino Surfaces Spring 2023 collection, Valentino has released a powerful and timeless new campaign celebrating their iconic VLogo in a series of crisp images lensed by Steven Meisel. American supermodel Kristen McMenamy appears in the campaign alongside models Sora Choi, Alaato Jazyper Michael and Cas Van Uytvanck (who wears the Valentino Garavani Le Troisième Toile Iconographe bag like a headdress).

Piccioli’s tenure at Valentino has been defined by his ability to look to the house’s history and resignify it, and the same can be said of the revival of the VLogo. For Spring/Summer 1968, Valentino Garavani created the first ever V pattern, which later appeared in the house’s pret-à-porter collections, while the entrance to Palazzo Mignanelli – the historic headquarters of the maison in Rome – has featured a Valentino ‘V’ inside an ellipse since 1960 (backdropped by Igor Mitoraj’s haunting sculpture in the courtyard). 

Now, the VLogo is revived and reimagined by Pierpaolo Piccioli with Valentino’s Toile Iconographe items and for this collection – now in store – which is inspired by the fashion of the 1970s. Bralettes, capes, Valentino Garavani bucket hats and boots are stamped with the logo, transporting Valentino’s pattern into the present day and injecting it with an enduring sense of timelessness. “The logo is alive. It breathes. It slides, slowly, across the surface,” the Maison explains. “It rejects categorisation, constantly, with new paths. It creates and recreates, reinvents, cuts and sews.” 

The Valentino Toile Iconographe items are available to shop now.