Down an unsuspecting cobbled street and inside ancient unassuming architecture in the heart of Rome’s over-subscribed city lies the life of one of Italy’s most iconic couturiers – Valentino. It’s not every weekend one gets asked to visit what is, perhaps, one of the last remaining real couture ateliers, but then again, it’s not every weekend one gets whisked off to Rome with the aforementioned luxury label for company. And as experiences go, this was certainly on par with visiting Santa’s Grotto as a six-year-old girl. But we’ll warn you now, there’ll be no visual candy in this post (on the request of Valentino and for reasons we hope are rather obvious). An introduction from the atelier’s manager in the courtyard tells us when we step inside the surrounding stone walls, we’ll witness girls, as the dressmakers are referred, creating the clothes we see on the catwalk; we’ll see the materials and feel the fabrics; we’ll learn the secrets of made-to-measure sizing and the art of structuring; we’ll hold some of Valentino’s most iconic creations. It’s rather amusing, really, that for us the above sounds like something straight from a sartorial dream – we can touch the dresses? – but for the atelier’s girls, it’s just another piece of silk organza, another stitch, another day at work. For all Valentino’s great elegance, these women, crowded around several small tables on the second floor of a warm rustic building, sharing jokes about the over-excited group of foreigners that have come to see them sew a sleeve to a blouse, are really rather ordinary. But their work, well, that’s quite a different matter. Everything you know from Valentino’s couture collections is created here in this humble home. The cream lace dress Jackie O wore to get wed in 1968; a replica of […]