Mixed Messages

An unusual design partnership born out of a Tokyo store opening is having a lingering impact on the look of Valentino.

- Eric Wilson

At a time when cross-pollination is the latest buzzword of disruption, collaborations are a dime a dozen, but the mash-up taking place between Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli and Undercover’s Jun Takahashi may well be a fashion bromance for the ages.

What started as mere flirtation, when Takahashi was among several artists who created items for Valentino’s magnificent pre-fall show in Tokyo last November, has blossomed into something more meaningful, as Piccioli featured a substantial number of Takahashi’s prints in both his fall men’s and women’s collections, and Takahashi showed some of them in his own men’s show as well. While it’s hardly unusual for an insider streetwear label like Undercover to relate to a couture house like Valentino in contemporary fashion, the depth of their partnership seemed an inviting opportunity to explore just what a dialogue between two creative cooks might sound like.

“Long silence, eye contact, shy smile, then drawing,” Piccioli says in his typically florid Italian manner. “The sound comes from the pencil, I guess. We do not speak that loud.”

Takahashi, more enigmatic in the Japanese custom, describes the conversation as “searching for the common beauty in each other’s work.”