Why Valentino chose to support ACT N°1

For this edition of Milan Women's Fashion Week, Valentino has again chosen to support an emerging fashion brand on the Italian scene, giving ACT N°1 media exposure that the brand founded in 2016 by Galib Gassanoff and Luca Lin, alone, would not have been able to achieve. Pierpaolo Piccioli decided to focus on the story of two designers for whom fashion is a primary act: dressing, cladding, adding, subtracting, and sculpting are just some of the operations behind the creative process of a fashion collection. And, for SS23, ACT N°1 wanted to reflect on the meaning of time. 

The theme of the incessant passing of seconds, hours, and minutes were so central that it developed a partnership with Casio Vintage: a selection of looks was developed with Casio Vintage watches, conceived as a kind of metal armor. Embroidered on tulle dresses and tops or applied to a wool jacket, they trace the primary function of protection from the outside. Watches are a symbol of evolution and time, binding us to the past and motivating us for the future, never stopping. As well as the reference color palettes, the casting of models - the variability of body shape and age of those who exhibited ACT N°1 on the runway challenged the rigidity with which we subscribed to a sometimes draconian aesthetic canon - and the alternation of a wardrobe shaded toward different occasions and moments of reference set up an idea of clothing in which romanticism clearly prevailed over the idea of cerebralism, while still presenting a wearable collection.

ACT N°1 SS23

ACT N°1 SS23

ACT N°1 SS23

ACT N°1 SS23

ACT N°1 SS23

There was also no lack of a more markedly collective reflection traceable in the masks exhibited on the runway: initially used and developed for self-defense, the masks increasingly overlapped with the idea of a person going into the semantic reservoirs of art, literary and cultural works.  From ACT N°1, the concept is expressed by elements of Traditional Chinese Opera with details revised to represent a vestimentary gesture to inextricably link past, present, and future. And then corsets, tulle ruffles with volumes, textures, and structures give the idea of a shield. Beyond what is an aesthetic imagery overlapping, in part, with Valentino's microcosm, the attitude devoted to research and the incorporation of interesting scenarios is also what united the two brands in the narrative of a genuinely inclusive process.  In collaboration with Cuoio di Toscana, ACT N°1 has developed a capsule of sandals with green leather soles, according to eco-sustainable criteria governed by stringent regulations. Leather is a natural material, and the soles are made following the technique of slow tanning in a vegetable bath, which involves the transformation of raw hides into a durable material. 17 million followers potentially tuned in to the live broadcast on Maison Valentino's Instagram account for the ACT N°1 show was the most immediate means of supporting a creative project that Pierpaolo Piccioli chose to believe in and personally invest in. It was the idea of talent though, in its concept of gift, that made the ACT N°1 collection functional (as well as beautiful).