- [Thebe] I think the concept of reworking,
and reinterpreting another designer's work is very exciting.
I think it creates an opportunity,
for there to be creative tension.
- I love the idea of reinterpreting, but actually,
I even more love the idea of creating a moment,
between two identities, two culture.
A moment of meeting.
- Wow.
I'm very, very nervous.
Whatever this is, it's in my favorite color already.
Right.
Wow. This is so...
- It is beautiful.
- Gorgeous.
When I opened the box from Valentino,
for the very first time, I was incredibly nervous,
'cause I'm a bit of a planner.
So I like to know what I'm getting in advance.
Beautiful.
But it was completely kept a secret.
So when it arrived, I opened up the box,
and there was this beautiful fuchsia pink,
haute couture dress, with these incredible pleats.
Laying it on the table,
you really start to appreciate the level of work,
and craftsmanship that has gone into this garment.
And it's quite a lot of fabric on it.
Not only the silk taffeta,
but inside, it's lined with a very soft pink tulle,
and then under there, a very hard, an even harder tulle.
It really is a work of art,
and you almost have to just stand,
and be really arrested by its beauty.
Even if it does come apart,
I think we'll just re-pleat the section that we need.
Yeah.
Stressful, but it'll be okay.
It was very exciting.
This idea of reworking and re-contextualizing,
another designer's pieces,
because it speaks to the conversations we're having already,
around this idea of over production.
You know, instead of making new things,
let's look at what we already have,
and try and up-cycle and reinterpret and change that.
[man speaking foreign language]
- The look that Thebe sent me,
was the very classic contemporary suit,
done with with the blankets from his history, his heritage.
I love the idea of reinterpreting.
I even more love the idea of creating a moment,
between two identities, two culture.
I'm Italian. We are here in Roma.
And we are working on a work of a human,
that comes from another part of the world.
And I wanted to get this heritage into my own culture,
which is the couture.
From a conversation, always comes something different.
Especially when you talk with people,
that are different from you,
that have different stories, of course.
I still feel that fashion is a self expression,
is a language.
Actually, the things that impressed me the most,
was this letter.
The one that Thebe sent me.
He say something that is very moving to me.
Tribe called the Basotho,
blankets form a very big part of our culture.
So I wanted to alight this fabric, but also, his culture.
And so that was the very starting point,
of this collaboration.
[speaking indistinctly]
Whatever you wanna call it.
- I often say I'm not a great verbal communicator,
so to make up for that,
I use my clothes, in a way, to almost speak on my behalf.
I really wanted to take this haute couture piece,
and move it into my universe, my context,
and especially my way of working,
which is more in a ready-to-wear context.
So for the dress, I'm thinking,
it's going to break my heart,
but I'm going to completely unpick it,
remove the skirt part, remove the top part,
and use one of my patterns to recut it,
as a very elevated trench coat.
And with the leftover fabric,
I think we're going to create a wide leg pair of pants,
with a very generous cuff on it and a matching shirt.
- [Pierpaolo] The cape is the purest expression of couture,
because it's so simple, so pure,
and it's done with just cut and super, no decoration.
We de-constructed the suit, actually.
And we are applying the suit, the fabric on top of the cape,
giving shape to the cape,
but using the blanket as an embroidery.
So between the cape, as expression of couture,
and the blanket that is expression of Thebe's culture,
I think this creates a conversation,
and a good tension between our history and his heritage.
- I was very excited to work with Pierpaolo on this project.
I deeply respect what Pierpaolo does as a designer.
I think his relationship to color,
his relationship to proportion, is so fresh.
And I think he's certainly contributed,
to the changing conversation around what haute couture is.
I love it.
Clip there. And it creates a really beautiful shaped hat.
- I thought Thebe has something to say.
He is from South Africa, which is, I think is difficult.
It's not exactly in the middle of fashion.
I think we share same values,
because talking about identities,
being faithful to who you are,
trying to face another world, I think it's interesting.
I think the connection has to be human first,
of everything.
Actually, I don't have idea of what Thebe will do.
I sent him a very, say classic in volume,
couture taffeta dress.
And I hope that he will handle it in his own way.
I think I've been respectful of his work,
but I've worked with my own instruments,
and I hope he will do the same.
- I expect that he's going to do the opposite,
of what I'm doing.
So, taking something in ready-to-wear,
and moving it into his very high haute couture universe.
I'm almost doing the opposite in a lot of ways.
Taking this incredible piece that he's created at Valentino,
and moving it into ready-to-wear,
where more people essentially can see themselves in it.
[bright music]
- What I did was exactly the mix,
between creating something which was the connection,
between your identity and my own identity.
- It was actually quite intimidating,
because it arrived in like a very big metal flight case,
with not only one, but like, two keys.
But once we opened it,
you really get such a, even bigger appreciation,
of like, haute couture and what Pierpaolo does.
'Cause you know,
it's precision to look absolutely effortless, you know.
And everything...
Like, nothing was out of place.
And I think the exciting challenge with it,
was using absolutely everything.
The zips, the corsetry, the construction, the tulle.
'Cause I felt like if I was going to unpick,
the beautiful pleats on the waist,
that was going to just get struck down by lightning,
so we just preserved all the plicae pleats,
and moved it into the armhole.
And then the white tulle that was inside the dress,
we took for dying with this incredible dye master,
called Paul, in the south of Johannesburg.
And we matched the pink to the exact level,
as the original fabric on top.
So there was a lot of, there was a lot to play with.
- There was a lot of fabric, right?
- There was a lot of fabric.
- As I told you, I love the fact that this fabric,
was originally a blanket,
and was definitely part of your culture.
I wanted to be...
To, yes, to alight your identity or your culture,
and your heritage, with something that could be more,
like Italian kind of couture.
It's like a melting between the two.
The cape is a symbol of, you know, Italian Madonnas,
the culture.
The Renaissance culture.
And it's also a symbol of couture,
because it is the purest shape in couture.
The fabric was the starting point with the process.
And so what we did was to cut the fabric,
in order to give it a different placement,
to alight the fabric itself.
So I used a different fabric,
because there were not as much to--
- Yeah. [laughs]
- I wanted to use the fabric as the embroidery itself,
of the cape.
I'm very happy of, you know, this...
The connection we created.
Because I felt that even in yours,
there's something that came out from our meeting,
and that's it.
So, it's not something that I could do alone,
or nor you could do alone.
So it's the result of the meeting of two humans,
which I like.
- In my own work,
I really do love throwing opposites together.
And like, just that idea of things,
that shouldn't even be together,
just like, being meshed into one thing.
I think that's where a certain magic can happen.
- Ciao. Grazie.
The final look reflects the respectful conversation we had.
In a way, it reflects the roots of Thebe. His tribe.
It became a suit,
and now he had a new transformation, becoming a cape.
- Because of how I grew up,
I used to be so embarrassed about everything around me,
but like I've made it my own personal mission,
to almost take that and move it into the echelons of luxury.
You know?
I think people have really stale ideas,
about what African fashion is.
I just want to show people that we're very nuanced.
- So it's like a cape in a facing contemporaneity.
And it's, of course, the end of this path,
we have with Thebe.
I just hope that Thebe will recognize himself.
- [Thebe] I think when you explore collaborative efforts,
like that, and you test things that are very disparate,
I think when they come together,
it forms something new altogether.
Something challenging.
And I think this project was exactly that.
- I'm very happy. I have to say that.
[speaking indistinctly]
Because at the end,
the challenge was to reflect two stories, two identities,
two big cultures melting together,
into something that could reflect both together.
[bright music]