I miss MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI and PIERPAOLO PICCIOLI’s collaboration. After seeing their separate collections as sole creative directors at DIOR and VALENTINO, one can guess at the spark each brought to the partnership. Chiuri brought a structural integrity to Piccioli’s freewheeling references. His outreach to iconography and visual references cross centuries, and I wonder if it was Chiuri’s eye that gave order to it, through a clear progression of silhouettes, the precision-placement of embroidery, and a millimeter-scale attention to proportion. In episodes of TIM'S TAKE at Dior and Valentino, TIM BLANKS interviews each designer standing in front of their respective mood boards. Chiuri's attention to detail is evident in the video, where she discusses the minute hand-stitching and particular shade of navy chosen by CHRISTIAN DIOR for a silk taffeta dress from the house archives. That kind of detail can get lost if there's no unifying story, or if the connections in that story are buried in minutiae. Chiuri’s strength is in her exacting, almost animal-instinct for proportion. With her clothes at Dior, you see a scalpel-like precision for exactly where to place the waistline, exactly where to proportion the layers of a tiered skirt, exactly how far apart the shoulder straps should sit. The brilliance of that is, just like APPLE products, it slides into your life like another part of atmosphere. That’s the genius of design: one hardly notices. With Piccioli's collection, the references, stunning as they were, lacked continuity and sometimes felt like they got in the way. I hope Chiuri will deliver an overarching story, which has eluded the recent Dior collections. There were hints of it in the tarot collection. I hope Piccioli can harmonize his references. Microcosm and macrocosm from C and P. Put together, it was sublime. Separately, they’ve retreated into their strengths somewhat quietly. That’s the thing about collaboration: the collab ends up being greater than any single mind. Clearly, they’re both brilliant. Now I hope to see them both be fearless. Can't wait to see what they do next... NATALIE MASSANET and NICK BROWN have launched a venture fund. This could be key given that culturally, venture capital has largely lacked fluency for fashion... The YSL ad controversy reminds me of moral panics from CALVIN KLEIN's BROOKE SHIELDS ad to TOM FORD's GUCCI. If the YSL ads were online only (not plastered across the streets of PARIS), would there have been as much of an uproar?... REI sighting... More Paris: GIAMBATTISTA VALLI, ALEXANDER MCQUEEN. MARTIN GRANT. SACAI... SNUGGIES for the win. Snuggies x VETEMENTS? Any takers?