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Valentino

PARIS, June 27, 2008
By Tim Blanks
Emile Hirsch is the new face of Valentino's menswear, which tells you plenty about where the house is heading under Ferruccio Pozzoni. Once upon a time, the designer talked about Helmut Berger and David Sylvian as benchmarks. Now he wants to get a young clientele interested in dressing up. And his latest collection was nothing if not dressy—though it was also slightly airless in its emphasis on out-and-out luxe. Like the checked jean jacket over a shawl-collared, double-breasted waistcoat and a stock-tied shirt. Clothes for a modern peacock? (Check the lilac shoes that completed the outfit.) But if Valentino himself increasingly emphasized the value of leavening "important" pieces with jeans and T-shirts, Pozzoni has unwittingly given the wearer similar leeway: Don't dress up the double-faced plonge-leather jacket, or the coat in navy mohair. And accept the cream canvas cotton suit as a casual new version of eveningwear. The designer momentarily blanched when that suggestion was made—especially because he'd already offered a spectacular linen tux as an alternative to conventional eveningwear—but he quickly came to terms with a different perspective. Which suggests he may be the tugboat to turn this battleship around.

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