ROCKSTUD, 2010
Rockstud bag, Valentino, Paris, June 2014.
Lee Oliveira/Trunk Archive
When Valentino Garavani, who founded his eponymous house in Rome in 1960, retired in 2008, the designer duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli took over as creative directors. They had been at the house since 1999 and were well versed in the Valentino signatures, like the color red and dramatic florals—one of their early bag hits was a fanciful shopper decorated in oversized petal-like ruffles. And before that, they had spent ten years designing handbags at Fendi and were part of the team behind the Baguette. “We are like an old married couple,” Chiuri remarked to Harper’s Bazaar in 2013. Their desks at Valentino even faced each other.
In 2010 Chiuri and Piccioli launched the Rockstud collection, fusing tradition with contemporary currency: the leather is smooth, the silhouettes are structured and ladylike—a frame bag, a demure clutch—pure Valentino. Yet with square pyramid studs sparingly applied just as trim, as an outline, the bag takes on an edgier look. “You put on something very elegant, but with the studs it becomes very different,” Piccioli told the Times in 2012. “Women are fussier today; they are not only elegant or only rock, so when you use both together, the elegance with the rockness of the studs, the result is very similar to modern women.” While metals studs as detailing are common enough, Chiuri and Piccioli transformed the square pyramid stud into a Valentino signature, used across the collection. There’s even a line of studded unisex clothing called Rockstud Unlimited. Explaining their take on the punk staple, Chiuri told New York Magazine in 2015, “Everybody paints the same Madonna, but there is a big difference between Caravaggio and somebody else.”
In 2016 Chiuri became artistic director of Christian Dior, leaving Piccioli as the sole creative director of Valentino. It was the first time either had worked without the other in twenty-six years. One of Piccioli’s first independent projects was the launch of the Rockstud Spike bag, a quilted ladylike design prettily dotted with stud detailing. To celebrate, Piccioli teamed up with photographer and director Terry Richardson and created a video diary of the handbag in New York City, casting a motley group of people straight off the street—a move inspired by the blog and book Humans of New York. “It is not the accessory that defines the persona,” Piccioli explained to Women’s Wear Daily in 2016, “but it is the object that allows the persona to express one’s character, attitude and diversity.”
“Fashion is not so complex. It is about making a woman beautiful.”
—VALENTINO GARAVANI, The New Yorker, September 26, 2005
Models in Valentino Red, The New York Times Magazine, July 2007.
Jason Schmidt/Trunk Archive