When it came to selecting key pieces from Valentino’s L’École collection for her dancers to twirl in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall recently, dancer and choreographer Chloe Leong made sure to select shorter silhouettes and items “with more flow to them”. After all, the fusion of fashion and choreography only works if the fabric moves freely with the body.
Thankfully, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli’s sensual collection, one of his last for the luxury Italian house after announcing his departure less than a week ago, was created with the idea of movement and the female form. “So it wasn’t really a challenge,” says Leong.
“There’s moments where you feel like it’s second skin. The boundary between fabric and skin integrates in and of itself. So when the movement happens, there is no delayed effect.”
At the same time, many pieces in the collection, presented at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts’ during Paris Fashion Week last October, are sculptural: crisp white shirts and cookie cutouts of animals, fruits and florals.
“There’s this strength and really strong texture to them,” says Leong. “I feel like the pieces really explore the totality of a woman. There’s not this sense that she’s graceful and elegant and soft, but that there’s this strength. And in that strength, there’s this sensuality and embodied empowerment that really comes across.”
Leong, a former dancer with the Sydney Dance Company who studied at the Rambert School of Ballet, led four other dancers in a performance titled “Skin Deep” in Sydney on Friday and Saturday. It gave passersby the opportunity to see the craftsmanship and tailoring of a luxury design house up close – and in an urban setting.
The performance was also a way of celebrating the natural relationship between two different art forms: dance and fashion. It’s a relationship Leong understands all too well.
“Both art forms want to create narrative, they want to explore emotions and both are able to push past the boundaries of culture and identity, which I think is really beautiful,” she says.
“In terms of having a model wear a beautiful garment or an influencer wearing a beautiful garment, it’s the collection that speaks for itself. But I think as dancers, you’re able to show the possibility of the garment. I’m trying to envision how I look in it, but I’m also envisioning movement.”
