The boutique now houses a wood-veneered listening room built with Terraforma and Giorgio Di Salvo.
Valentino is turning down Madison Avenue’s traffic and turning up the volume inside its boutique. On Thursday, the house revealed L’Atelier Sonore, a listening room set on the mezzanine and steered by creative director Alessandro Michele.
Conceived with Milan’s cultural collective Terraforma, founded by Ruggero Pietromarchi, the project treats sound as another couture fabric. Tracing the partnership’s beginnings, Pietromarchi shared with The Fashionography, “The dialogue about the partnership started a little after Alessandro Michele arrived at Maison Valentino, and it’s grounded in a mutual high regard and appreciation of each other’s practice. I would say that both Alessandro’s and Terraforma highly value ideas before strategies, as well as we share the value of care and obsession for the details the care and passion.” Terraforma tapped sound designer and streetwear veteran Giorgio Di Salvo to shape an enveloping audio landscape that runs through a custom system.
Architect Francesco Lupia mapped the room around three components: a custom speaker array, a handcrafted listening console that nods to cabinet-making, and modular seats in velvet. Each surface wears a patchwork of veneered woods that mirrors Valentino’s atelier workmanship. Pietromarchi explains the acoustic choices behind that hush: “The idea of covering the room with fitted curtains and carpets both reflected Valentino’s aesthetics and the perfect solution for a good sound immersion. On the other hand, the sitting area is modular and purposely low to make the visitors as comfortable as possible and in direct line with the height of the speakers. Then, of course, the idea of having only vinyl records – and one turntable only – defines the environment even more towards a slow and deep experience.”
To start the space, Valentino and Terraforma hosted a ten-hour programme from 2 p.m. Thursday. The lineup featured Laraaji, Lea Bertucci, Laurel Halo, Lizzi Bougatsos, Chuquimamani-Condori, Kevin Beasley, Veronica Vasicka and Physical Therapy in back-to-back sessions.
When asked why, in a year saturated by visuals, attentive listening feels urgent for a fashion brand, Pietromarchi said, “Fashion has often been quite captive of society’s new direction and tendencies. And I believe that sound has a huge impact on society, in different ways and on different levels. And now that, as you mention, the visual world is saturated, society and therefore brands are (hopefully) opening their ears to raise more awareness on this key tool that is listening. For me, it is an ecological practice that can have a crucial impact on society through informing about environmental and social issues.”
L’Atelier Sonore remains open daily from 16 May through the end of August. On select dates, friends of the house will step in to share personal selections, turning Madison Avenue retail into a quiet refuge for focused listening.
