Training, skills transfer and the circular economy. It’s a stimulating project that Valentino, which has just published its very first sustainability report, has set up through “La Bottega dell’arte”. This in-house training programme dedicated to couture, financed by the resale of the luxury house’s dormant fabrics, has been relocated this autumn to a renovated space.

To mark the launch of the new 2023 edition of this programme, Valentino provides an update on this academy project, which was created in 2015. Over the last few years, the project has welcomed 35 students, several of whom have subsequently joined the company, she explains.

Since October, the academy has benefited from new, more spacious premises at Valentino’s historic headquarters in Rome. The seven students who have joined the new class will follow a nine-month training course under the aegis of two former seamstresses from the atelier.

The course also includes spending time in the haute couture workshops of the house, of which there are five, during the preparation periods for the haute couture shows. This gives students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of the brand, while learning about the techniques involved in couture. At the end of the programme, they will present their couture projects to creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli.

In 2021, the brand also launched the “Valentino Sleeping Stock” programme in partnership with French retailer Tissu Market, founded by Franck Lellouche in 2010, to give new life to the fabrics kept in its archives, the materials chosen by Pierpaolo Piccioli for his haute couture and ready-to-wear collections, not all of which have been used.

Thanks to this partnership, these dormant fabrics are being resold to opera houses, theatre and film productions, fashion schools and young designers, making Valentino’s textile archives accessible to private individuals for the first time. All proceeds from the sale of these fabrics are donated to the Bottega dell’arte.