Diva Runways, Haute Couture Productions: Valentino’s Materialisations of Operatic Histories

Abstract Since the 1980s opera and fashion directors have earnestly explored the potential for symbiotic relationships as a way to sustain performance institutions and showcase forward-thinking approaches to operatic works, as evidenced by collaborations between the creative directors of Missoni, Versace, Fendi and Armani with La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House. In addition, fashion companies such as Dolce&Gabbana have found inspiration from opera’s long and celebrated histories within Italy, using operatic works as a platform for haute couture runway design. This article studies three projects from Maison Valentino which are among the most recent fashionable forays into the genre of opera. In addition to collaborating on the 2016 production of La traviata with the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Valentino highlighted operatic heroines on the runway in 2014, and in 2018 created a collection inspired by Maria Callas, who inspired a number of repertorial revivals in the twentieth century. Valentino’s sartorial re-imaginings of nineteenth-century operatic culture on the stage and runway – achieved in both instances through incarnations of Callas – have sought to position Italian operatic history as a practical aspect of contemporary material culture. By showcasing the economic, political and social ramifications of Valentino’s collaborative efforts, I show how the company’s reformulations of operatic materials have impacted both conventional and unconventional structures of contemporary performance.