Valentino’s Capes and Seven Capital Vices

Valentino presented its haute couture fall/winter 2017-18 collection last week in Paris. Each layer revealed a new identity full of ritual, iconography, and exaltation. Capes and veils were dramatically employed in looks, adding a sense of tactile delicacy.

Objects were created to represent vices like pride, envy, greed, wrath, gluttony, sloth and lust. Valentino used animals to identify each: the lion as sloth, the cheetah as pride, the owl as greed, the monkey as gluttony, the ox as wrath, the snake as lust, and the skull as pride.

Valentino Haute Couture fall/winter 2017-18 Collection
Courtesy of Valentino

The symbolic animals were used throughout the show, acting as a metaphor for the relationship between humans, sins, and freedom.

Valentino Haute Couture fall/winter 2017-18 Collection
Courtesy of Valentino

Valentino Haute Couture fall/winter 2017-18 Collection
Courtesy of Valentino