At the Paris haute couture shows earlier this month, amid the goddess gowns and warrior armour, the plumes of feathers and sculptural silhouettes, an arresting moment of reality: Kaia Gerber in jeans, opening Valentino’s 76-look spectacle at Château de Chantilly.
Except, well, not really. These weren’t just jeans, nor were they made for anything approaching your, or my, reality. Rather, Valentino’s take on the trusty wardrobe staple was painstakingly crafted from silk gazar and embroidered with micro glass beads in a trompe l’oeil effect to resemble denim. A few exits later came some actual denim; albeit rare vintage Levi’s 501 XX Big E jeans with gilded arabesque applique. Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli wasn’t the only one to give the ultimate everyman uniform a 1% of the 1% treatment.
