Pre-Fashion Week Fashion: Valentino Vintage Couture

Vintage Valentino haute couture at the New York Design Center

I love the event before the storm: you're not burned out and bitching about Fashion Week illness or hurting feet, and you're excited about the upcoming events instead of groaning when another invite comes to your inbox. And you can leisurely peruse gorgeous gowns, Italian cinema photographs, and an auction house full of antiques with your date without the pressure of running off to the next best thing.

Last week, before the insanity of NYFW in September, we attended an event sponsored by Tanqueray with 1stDibs.com, Rare Vintage, and the John and Maria Phillips Foundation at the New York Design Center. I brought along my husband, because in addition to a viewing of Vintage Valentino being sold at auction on 1stDibs, there was also a show of 1960's Italian cinema photographs by famed Life photographer John Phillips. My husband is an Italian cinema freak, and I can take me some Fellini any day; any style lover would.

What is sexier than this photo? Italians know beauty. This isn't from a Fellini film, but a Vittorio de Sica episode in Bocaccio 70.

We enjoyed Tanqueray cocktails, a perfect match for a cinematic showing because that green bottle is very dramatic, and drank in the Valentino surroundings:

Classic Valentino red.

I didn't do any shopping but a girl can look. If you'd like to do more than look, there's plenty of Valentino here.