Valentinos "It's A Love Thing"

 While I was flipping through the winter issue of Pop magazine (the one with Britney Spears on the cover), amid inspiring pages filled with kitschy imagery with a touch of Japanese pop art (aside from Shala Monroque's page, I love Takashi Murakami's complementary stickers) I found a candid interview with Valentino's creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli. In the lengthy profile, they talk about their anointment as helm of the italian house, their unexpected first encounter in Florence (through Giambattista Valli) and their families. The interviewer, Melanie Rickey, inquired on their obsessions. "My obsessions now are white shoes. I only wear white shoes", Pier answered. "It's a love thing", Maria Grazia responds regarding the studded pointy slingbacks you see above from their 2010 fall/winter pret-a-porter collection. "She has the studded slingbacks in every colour", Pier chimes in. I think throughout the interview they finish each other sentences, indicative of their work for Valentino. They sort of complement each other, what one has the other is missing and viceversa. 

The slingsbacks that Maria Grazia is obsessed with (which leads me to assume she wears them too frequently to the Valentino Atelier) is a direct reflection of their interpretation of the Valentino woman. She's ever so sweet but has a dark side. A thug on a dress? It's probably an exaggeration, but I imagine her with a knife under her underpinnings.