One of Valentino’s more remarkable releases for the Spring/Summer 2015 range is the MIME collection, a beautiful piece inspired by baroque travel. The brainchild of Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, the collection was inspired by the centuries-old tradition of the Grand Tour, a trip wealthy young Europeans would undertake in order to become familiar with the art and culture of Italy.
The MIME collection features a series of foulard prints depicting stories of old, called the Blossom, Leaf, Flower Eyes, Arabesque, and Flower Dot. Each of these displays a different color scheme and is created with a single print or a patchwork of these prints. The floral printed patchwork leather and the stunning kaleidoscope effect that is achieved truly sets this collection apart from anything we’ve seen in quite some time.
The bags are presented as a printed leather patchwork: once all the leather panels are printed using a digital technique, the designs are combined together like a patchwork on the different bags. The shoes are also very special, since each shoe style is different owing to the fact that every component of theirs represents a different print.
Words don’t really seem to do justice to this intriguing collection, so we’ll leave you with a video and an image gallery, which you can see below.
