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| Meta Title | Valentino Garavani: The Enduring Emperor of Elegance |
| Meta Description | The death in January of Valentino Garavani is another sign that a remarkable era in Italian fashion is coming to a close. |
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| Boilerpipe Text | There are designers who shape trends, and then there are those who define an era. Valentino Garavani belonged unmistakably to the latter. With a vision rooted in beauty, discipline and quiet grandeur, he transformed fashion into a language of timeless elegance. From his signature scarlet gowns to his unwavering devotion to craftsmanship, Valentino did not merely dress women—he elevated them into enduring symbols of grace.
On January 21, two days after the death of 93-year-old Valentino Garavani, Naomi Campbell, who knew him better than most having constellated his catwalks so often, posted the following eulogy to Instagram:
Dear Vava, I was honoured to walk and work with you. I carry so many memories of work, on journeys, and in moments of quiet joy and I am deeply grateful for every one of them. You were the embodiment of elegance and grace. Within Rome, you created a world entirely your own, the Valentino world where devotion to beauty, care in every detail, and a rare perfection felt almost sacred. Nothing was ever accidental: the fabrics, the movement, the lightest touch of beading. Wearing a Valentino dress was transformative – it lifted you, transported you, and made you feel part of another era, shared with the great women you dressed so magnificently.
You brought out something extraordinary in all of us – a different presence, a different walk, an elegance as light as a feather. There will always be moments when only a Valentino dress would do and those moments will forever carry your absence. May your journey be gentle. Know that you are loved. Emperor of emperors, you are home.
Valentino with Naomi Campbell and a bevy of supermodels
Valentino, the so-called “Sheikh of Chic”, may have died a legend but arguably he started life as one too. Born in 1932 in Voghera, a small town south of Milan, his parents named him after screen legend Rudolph Valentino and he later credited Hollywood with cultivating his interest in fashion.
“I had an unbelievable father and mother. They let me do anything I wanted, but I never deceived them … I had a sister and she took me to see films. I’d dream about beautiful women, extremely sophisticated, all made up with beautiful jewellery and dresses. I think, from that time on, I decided to be a fashion designer. The movie that did it was
Ziegfeld Girl
[1941].”
The clothes Valentino so admired in
Ziegfeld Girl
were designed by Adrien Adolph Greenburg, head of wardrobe at MGM from 1928 to 1941. Greenburg dressed them all: Garbo, Crawford, Hepburn, Turner, Harlow (along with Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in
The Wizard of Oz
), his designs popularising Hollywood-inspired trends among American women. And he created Spanish toreador costumes for Rudolph Valentino in
A Sainted Devil
(1924), and his wardrobe in
The Eagle
(1925) and
The Son of the Sheik
(1926). See the famous star-patterned gown sequence in
Ziegfeld Girl
, which reflected the extravagant and lavish style of the original Ziegfeld Follies, and you may discern the spark that ignited the future Valentino-fication of ultra-luxuriant 20th-century fashion …
And Paris couldn’t come soon enough. Valentino left art school in Milan for Paris in 1950, where he studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Two years later and still only 20, he won an International Wool Secretariat design award – later renamed Woolmark – which Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld won in 1954, and joined the fashion house Jean Dessès where he met luminaries from the world of French cinema and European royalty. Guy Laroche, working as an illustrator at Dessès, then set up his own fashion house and took Valentino with him.
The young Valentino Garavani
But Valentino, already propelled by his klieg-light moment, returns to Italy and opens his own fashion house in Rome at 11 Via Condotti in 1959. His inaugural collection features Fiesta, his first red dress, a colour that will become a constant throughout his career and transform it into a symbol of his creative identity. Also in 1960 comes the most important moment of Valentino’s career. He meets Giancarlo Giammetti, who becomes his lifelong business partner and shorter-term lover. They launch Maison Valentino that year.
Italian cinema is simultaneously evolving on the world stage. Federico Fellini’s
La Dolce Vita
receives worldwide acclaim in 1960, and in January 1961 the release of
La Notte
by Michelangelo Antonioni sees Monica Vitti wearing the first Valentino dress on the big screen. And then a moment: Elizabeth Taylor, shooting
Cleopatra
in Rome, is photographed at an anniversary party for the film
Spartacus
, where she dances with Kirk Douglas. Taylor wore an ivory Valentino gown trimmed with ostrich feathers. Photographers swooned, the public melted. A month later, Taylor ordered 16 dresses from the young couturier. The following year, Valentino arrives in New York declaring his love for all things American. “I like America, American women, American clothes.”
For legendary
Vogue
editor Diana Vreeland, the feeling was mutual. She took Valentino under her wing in 1964: “Even at birth, genius always stands out. I see genius in you. Good luck.” Valentino called Vreeland a goddess, “the greatest heroine of all time”. The two attended Met Gala events together, much in the manner of Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld decades later. Coincidentally, Vreeland once said everything she knew about walking well in fashion “comes from watching
Ziegfeld Girl
”.
Reminiscing later of his time in New York with Vreeland, Valentino said: “She did everything; her calls in the morning, inviting us to theatre or a dinner with Andy [Warhol], to a performance of the Liquid Theatre or a dinner at Pearl’s with Jackie [Jacqueline Kennedy], and I felt New York was at my feet.”
Valentino and Jackie Kennedy
It was. In September 1964, Kennedy, still mourning her late husband and president John F Kennedy, requested a private viewing of a Valentino collection with the designer, and ordered all the designs in black and white. “The biggest gift of my life,” Valentino later declared it. In 1967, he was given the Neiman Marcus Award for distinguished service in the field of fashion, considered the Oscars of couture, marking his breakthrough into the American luxury market. Kennedy went travelling, and
Life
magazine published an extensive report on her trip to Cambodia, for which Valentino created her wardrobe.
And then in a major innovation for a designer who never innovated much and followed trends even less, or not at all, arrived the “all-white”, or “non-colour colour collection, comprising white, ivory and beige. The White Collection was immortalised by photographer Henry Clarke at artist Cy Twombly’s house and modelled by Benedetta Barzini and Marisa Berenson. (Did the idea inspire the name of The Beatles’ album the following year?) And inspired Kennedy to commission a dress for her marriage to Aristotle Onassis in 1968. The nuptial novelty featured on the cover of
Life
on November 1, declaring Valentino the “idol of the new generation, the new symbol of modern luxury”.
And the hits never stopped. Valentino dresses Hepburn, Taylor, princesses, queens; film director Luchino Visconti attends his fashion shows, as does Andy Warhol, who also paints him. By 1972 Valentino has homes in Rome, Capri and New York, and his company employs 4,000 people and makes 600 outfits a year, including three ready-to-wear collections (two for women, one for men), sold in more than 30 global boutiques. A decade later he’s the first living designer to have a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Vreeland, by then special consultant to the Costume Institute, invites him. “Valentino’s women can stand only in an art museum,” she declares. Warhol, Calvin Klein, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Placido Domingo, Brooke Shields, Liza Minnelli and even Muhammad Ali are among the invited glitterati.
In 1995, he buys Château de Wideville, 20km outside Versailles. Built in 1580, it was the residence of Madame de la Vallière, Louis XIV’s mistress. With Jay Gatsby-like affluence, Valentino has fresh mozzarella flown by private plane from Italy to his castle each day. The plane also has a row of seats to accommodate his five dogs. Meantime, he’s the red-carpet Oscar-glory go-to for all and sundry. Halle Berry (1996), Julia Roberts (2001), Jennifer Lopez (2003) and Cate Blanchett (2005), and etc … One year later he and Giammetti both appear in
The Devil Wears Prada
– on which note, expect plenty of Valentino references in this year’s sequel; the brand’s Rockstud shoes (from autumn/winter 2010) appeared to fanfare both ecstatic and detrimental in the trailer.
Valentino and lifelong business partner Giancarlo Giammetti
Italy has lost two fashion legends in the blink of an eye. Valentino was always the dramatic one; Giorgio Armani, who also conquered America, the minimalist. Valentino called Giorgio Armani “a friend, never a rival”, saying he could only ever “bow to his immense talent”. Unlike Armani, Valentino resisted the urge to go mainstream. The point was to be aloof, not accessible. And where Valentino extravaganced, Armani restrained. Vava was colour, Giorgio was neutrality; two sides of a supremely beautiful couture coin.
One year after the Valentino brand’s 45th anniversary in 2007, at which Karl Lagerfeld had famously told him, “Compared to us, the rest are making rags,” Valentino ended both fashion week and his career in the Rodin Museum gardens in Paris with his final couture collection. “I’m the luckiest person in the world,” he said.
As were those who wore his gilt-edged gownsomeness. Valentino made every woman he dressed a masterpiece, an artwork, a red brushstroke of lasting wonder. His flowing, cascading skeins followed every step his muses took, like a night sky threading and beading stars into constellations and galaxies, cosmic glamour. Ziegfeld Girl.
“I have succeeded because through all these decades, I was always concerned about making beautiful clothes,” Valentino once said. “Let’s forget fashion. I want to make a girl who, when she’s dressed and arrives some place, people turn and say, ‘You look so sensational!’ And maybe I am here, today, because I always believed in this and I always try to do my best.” And oh-so-beautifulest.
This story first appeared on
Prestige Hong Kong
.
The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication. |
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- **Valentino Garavani: The Enduring Emperor of Elegance**
# Valentino Garavani: The Enduring Emperor of Elegance
By\ [Stephen Short](https://www.prestigeonline.com/kh/author/stephenshort/)
Published: Mar 17, 2026 03:36 PM ICT \| 9 MIN READ
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Valentino Garavani: The Enduring Emperor of Elegance
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There are designers who shape trends, and then there are those who define an era. Valentino Garavani belonged unmistakably to the latter. With a vision rooted in beauty, discipline and quiet grandeur, he transformed fashion into a language of timeless elegance. From his signature scarlet gowns to his unwavering devotion to craftsmanship, Valentino did not merely dress women—he elevated them into enduring symbols of grace.
On January 21, two days after the death of 93-year-old Valentino Garavani, Naomi Campbell, who knew him better than most having constellated his catwalks so often, posted the following eulogy to Instagram:
*Dear Vava, I was honoured to walk and work with you. I carry so many memories of work, on journeys, and in moments of quiet joy and I am deeply grateful for every one of them. You were the embodiment of elegance and grace. Within Rome, you created a world entirely your own, the Valentino world where devotion to beauty, care in every detail, and a rare perfection felt almost sacred. Nothing was ever accidental: the fabrics, the movement, the lightest touch of beading. Wearing a Valentino dress was transformative – it lifted you, transported you, and made you feel part of another era, shared with the great women you dressed so magnificently.*
*You brought out something extraordinary in all of us – a different presence, a different walk, an elegance as light as a feather. There will always be moments when only a Valentino dress would do and those moments will forever carry your absence. May your journey be gentle. Know that you are loved. Emperor of emperors, you are home.*
Valentino with Naomi Campbell and a bevy of supermodels
Valentino, the so-called “Sheikh of Chic”, may have died a legend but arguably he started life as one too. Born in 1932 in Voghera, a small town south of Milan, his parents named him after screen legend Rudolph Valentino and he later credited Hollywood with cultivating his interest in fashion.
“I had an unbelievable father and mother. They let me do anything I wanted, but I never deceived them … I had a sister and she took me to see films. I’d dream about beautiful women, extremely sophisticated, all made up with beautiful jewellery and dresses. I think, from that time on, I decided to be a fashion designer. The movie that did it was *Ziegfeld Girl* \[1941\].”
The clothes Valentino so admired in *Ziegfeld Girl* were designed by Adrien Adolph Greenburg, head of wardrobe at MGM from 1928 to 1941. Greenburg dressed them all: Garbo, Crawford, Hepburn, Turner, Harlow (along with Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in *The Wizard of Oz*), his designs popularising Hollywood-inspired trends among American women. And he created Spanish toreador costumes for Rudolph Valentino in *A Sainted Devil* (1924), and his wardrobe in *The Eagle* (1925) and *The Son of the Sheik* (1926). See the famous star-patterned gown sequence in *Ziegfeld Girl*, which reflected the extravagant and lavish style of the original Ziegfeld Follies, and you may discern the spark that ignited the future Valentino-fication of ultra-luxuriant 20th-century fashion …
And Paris couldn’t come soon enough. Valentino left art school in Milan for Paris in 1950, where he studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Two years later and still only 20, he won an International Wool Secretariat design award – later renamed Woolmark – which Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld won in 1954, and joined the fashion house Jean Dessès where he met luminaries from the world of French cinema and European royalty. Guy Laroche, working as an illustrator at Dessès, then set up his own fashion house and took Valentino with him.
The young Valentino Garavani
But Valentino, already propelled by his klieg-light moment, returns to Italy and opens his own fashion house in Rome at 11 Via Condotti in 1959. His inaugural collection features Fiesta, his first red dress, a colour that will become a constant throughout his career and transform it into a symbol of his creative identity. Also in 1960 comes the most important moment of Valentino’s career. He meets Giancarlo Giammetti, who becomes his lifelong business partner and shorter-term lover. They launch Maison Valentino that year.
Italian cinema is simultaneously evolving on the world stage. Federico Fellini’s *La Dolce Vita* receives worldwide acclaim in 1960, and in January 1961 the release of *La Notte* by Michelangelo Antonioni sees Monica Vitti wearing the first Valentino dress on the big screen. And then a moment: Elizabeth Taylor, shooting *Cleopatra* in Rome, is photographed at an anniversary party for the film *Spartacus*, where she dances with Kirk Douglas. Taylor wore an ivory Valentino gown trimmed with ostrich feathers. Photographers swooned, the public melted. A month later, Taylor ordered 16 dresses from the young couturier. The following year, Valentino arrives in New York declaring his love for all things American. “I like America, American women, American clothes.”
For legendary *Vogue* editor Diana Vreeland, the feeling was mutual. She took Valentino under her wing in 1964: “Even at birth, genius always stands out. I see genius in you. Good luck.” Valentino called Vreeland a goddess, “the greatest heroine of all time”. The two attended Met Gala events together, much in the manner of Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld decades later. Coincidentally, Vreeland once said everything she knew about walking well in fashion “comes from watching *Ziegfeld Girl*”.
Reminiscing later of his time in New York with Vreeland, Valentino said: “She did everything; her calls in the morning, inviting us to theatre or a dinner with Andy \[Warhol\], to a performance of the Liquid Theatre or a dinner at Pearl’s with Jackie \[Jacqueline Kennedy\], and I felt New York was at my feet.”
Valentino and Jackie Kennedy
It was. In September 1964, Kennedy, still mourning her late husband and president John F Kennedy, requested a private viewing of a Valentino collection with the designer, and ordered all the designs in black and white. “The biggest gift of my life,” Valentino later declared it. In 1967, he was given the Neiman Marcus Award for distinguished service in the field of fashion, considered the Oscars of couture, marking his breakthrough into the American luxury market. Kennedy went travelling, and *Life* magazine published an extensive report on her trip to Cambodia, for which Valentino created her wardrobe.
And then in a major innovation for a designer who never innovated much and followed trends even less, or not at all, arrived the “all-white”, or “non-colour colour collection, comprising white, ivory and beige. The White Collection was immortalised by photographer Henry Clarke at artist Cy Twombly’s house and modelled by Benedetta Barzini and Marisa Berenson. (Did the idea inspire the name of The Beatles’ album the following year?) And inspired Kennedy to commission a dress for her marriage to Aristotle Onassis in 1968. The nuptial novelty featured on the cover of *Life* on November 1, declaring Valentino the “idol of the new generation, the new symbol of modern luxury”.
And the hits never stopped. Valentino dresses Hepburn, Taylor, princesses, queens; film director Luchino Visconti attends his fashion shows, as does Andy Warhol, who also paints him. By 1972 Valentino has homes in Rome, Capri and New York, and his company employs 4,000 people and makes 600 outfits a year, including three ready-to-wear collections (two for women, one for men), sold in more than 30 global boutiques. A decade later he’s the first living designer to have a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Vreeland, by then special consultant to the Costume Institute, invites him. “Valentino’s women can stand only in an art museum,” she declares. Warhol, Calvin Klein, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Placido Domingo, Brooke Shields, Liza Minnelli and even Muhammad Ali are among the invited glitterati.
In 1995, he buys Château de Wideville, 20km outside Versailles. Built in 1580, it was the residence of Madame de la Vallière, Louis XIV’s mistress. With Jay Gatsby-like affluence, Valentino has fresh mozzarella flown by private plane from Italy to his castle each day. The plane also has a row of seats to accommodate his five dogs. Meantime, he’s the red-carpet Oscar-glory go-to for all and sundry. Halle Berry (1996), Julia Roberts (2001), Jennifer Lopez (2003) and Cate Blanchett (2005), and etc … One year later he and Giammetti both appear in *The Devil Wears Prada* – on which note, expect plenty of Valentino references in this year’s sequel; the brand’s Rockstud shoes (from autumn/winter 2010) appeared to fanfare both ecstatic and detrimental in the trailer.
Valentino and lifelong business partner Giancarlo Giammetti
Italy has lost two fashion legends in the blink of an eye. Valentino was always the dramatic one; Giorgio Armani, who also conquered America, the minimalist. Valentino called Giorgio Armani “a friend, never a rival”, saying he could only ever “bow to his immense talent”. Unlike Armani, Valentino resisted the urge to go mainstream. The point was to be aloof, not accessible. And where Valentino extravaganced, Armani restrained. Vava was colour, Giorgio was neutrality; two sides of a supremely beautiful couture coin.
One year after the Valentino brand’s 45th anniversary in 2007, at which Karl Lagerfeld had famously told him, “Compared to us, the rest are making rags,” Valentino ended both fashion week and his career in the Rodin Museum gardens in Paris with his final couture collection. “I’m the luckiest person in the world,” he said.
As were those who wore his gilt-edged gownsomeness. Valentino made every woman he dressed a masterpiece, an artwork, a red brushstroke of lasting wonder. His flowing, cascading skeins followed every step his muses took, like a night sky threading and beading stars into constellations and galaxies, cosmic glamour. Ziegfeld Girl.
“I have succeeded because through all these decades, I was always concerned about making beautiful clothes,” Valentino once said. “Let’s forget fashion. I want to make a girl who, when she’s dressed and arrives some place, people turn and say, ‘You look so sensational!’ And maybe I am here, today, because I always believed in this and I always try to do my best.” And oh-so-beautifulest.
*This story first appeared on [Prestige Hong Kong](https://www.prestigeonline.com/hk/style/a-tribute-to-valentino-garavani-emperor-of-elegance/).*
**Note:**
The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
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| Readable Markdown | There are designers who shape trends, and then there are those who define an era. Valentino Garavani belonged unmistakably to the latter. With a vision rooted in beauty, discipline and quiet grandeur, he transformed fashion into a language of timeless elegance. From his signature scarlet gowns to his unwavering devotion to craftsmanship, Valentino did not merely dress women—he elevated them into enduring symbols of grace.
On January 21, two days after the death of 93-year-old Valentino Garavani, Naomi Campbell, who knew him better than most having constellated his catwalks so often, posted the following eulogy to Instagram:
*Dear Vava, I was honoured to walk and work with you. I carry so many memories of work, on journeys, and in moments of quiet joy and I am deeply grateful for every one of them. You were the embodiment of elegance and grace. Within Rome, you created a world entirely your own, the Valentino world where devotion to beauty, care in every detail, and a rare perfection felt almost sacred. Nothing was ever accidental: the fabrics, the movement, the lightest touch of beading. Wearing a Valentino dress was transformative – it lifted you, transported you, and made you feel part of another era, shared with the great women you dressed so magnificently.*
*You brought out something extraordinary in all of us – a different presence, a different walk, an elegance as light as a feather. There will always be moments when only a Valentino dress would do and those moments will forever carry your absence. May your journey be gentle. Know that you are loved. Emperor of emperors, you are home.*
Valentino with Naomi Campbell and a bevy of supermodels
Valentino, the so-called “Sheikh of Chic”, may have died a legend but arguably he started life as one too. Born in 1932 in Voghera, a small town south of Milan, his parents named him after screen legend Rudolph Valentino and he later credited Hollywood with cultivating his interest in fashion.
“I had an unbelievable father and mother. They let me do anything I wanted, but I never deceived them … I had a sister and she took me to see films. I’d dream about beautiful women, extremely sophisticated, all made up with beautiful jewellery and dresses. I think, from that time on, I decided to be a fashion designer. The movie that did it was *Ziegfeld Girl* \[1941\].”
The clothes Valentino so admired in *Ziegfeld Girl* were designed by Adrien Adolph Greenburg, head of wardrobe at MGM from 1928 to 1941. Greenburg dressed them all: Garbo, Crawford, Hepburn, Turner, Harlow (along with Judy Garland’s ruby slippers in *The Wizard of Oz*), his designs popularising Hollywood-inspired trends among American women. And he created Spanish toreador costumes for Rudolph Valentino in *A Sainted Devil* (1924), and his wardrobe in *The Eagle* (1925) and *The Son of the Sheik* (1926). See the famous star-patterned gown sequence in *Ziegfeld Girl*, which reflected the extravagant and lavish style of the original Ziegfeld Follies, and you may discern the spark that ignited the future Valentino-fication of ultra-luxuriant 20th-century fashion …
And Paris couldn’t come soon enough. Valentino left art school in Milan for Paris in 1950, where he studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Two years later and still only 20, he won an International Wool Secretariat design award – later renamed Woolmark – which Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld won in 1954, and joined the fashion house Jean Dessès where he met luminaries from the world of French cinema and European royalty. Guy Laroche, working as an illustrator at Dessès, then set up his own fashion house and took Valentino with him.
The young Valentino Garavani
But Valentino, already propelled by his klieg-light moment, returns to Italy and opens his own fashion house in Rome at 11 Via Condotti in 1959. His inaugural collection features Fiesta, his first red dress, a colour that will become a constant throughout his career and transform it into a symbol of his creative identity. Also in 1960 comes the most important moment of Valentino’s career. He meets Giancarlo Giammetti, who becomes his lifelong business partner and shorter-term lover. They launch Maison Valentino that year.
Italian cinema is simultaneously evolving on the world stage. Federico Fellini’s *La Dolce Vita* receives worldwide acclaim in 1960, and in January 1961 the release of *La Notte* by Michelangelo Antonioni sees Monica Vitti wearing the first Valentino dress on the big screen. And then a moment: Elizabeth Taylor, shooting *Cleopatra* in Rome, is photographed at an anniversary party for the film *Spartacus*, where she dances with Kirk Douglas. Taylor wore an ivory Valentino gown trimmed with ostrich feathers. Photographers swooned, the public melted. A month later, Taylor ordered 16 dresses from the young couturier. The following year, Valentino arrives in New York declaring his love for all things American. “I like America, American women, American clothes.”
For legendary *Vogue* editor Diana Vreeland, the feeling was mutual. She took Valentino under her wing in 1964: “Even at birth, genius always stands out. I see genius in you. Good luck.” Valentino called Vreeland a goddess, “the greatest heroine of all time”. The two attended Met Gala events together, much in the manner of Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld decades later. Coincidentally, Vreeland once said everything she knew about walking well in fashion “comes from watching *Ziegfeld Girl*”.
Reminiscing later of his time in New York with Vreeland, Valentino said: “She did everything; her calls in the morning, inviting us to theatre or a dinner with Andy \[Warhol\], to a performance of the Liquid Theatre or a dinner at Pearl’s with Jackie \[Jacqueline Kennedy\], and I felt New York was at my feet.”
Valentino and Jackie Kennedy
It was. In September 1964, Kennedy, still mourning her late husband and president John F Kennedy, requested a private viewing of a Valentino collection with the designer, and ordered all the designs in black and white. “The biggest gift of my life,” Valentino later declared it. In 1967, he was given the Neiman Marcus Award for distinguished service in the field of fashion, considered the Oscars of couture, marking his breakthrough into the American luxury market. Kennedy went travelling, and *Life* magazine published an extensive report on her trip to Cambodia, for which Valentino created her wardrobe.
And then in a major innovation for a designer who never innovated much and followed trends even less, or not at all, arrived the “all-white”, or “non-colour colour collection, comprising white, ivory and beige. The White Collection was immortalised by photographer Henry Clarke at artist Cy Twombly’s house and modelled by Benedetta Barzini and Marisa Berenson. (Did the idea inspire the name of The Beatles’ album the following year?) And inspired Kennedy to commission a dress for her marriage to Aristotle Onassis in 1968. The nuptial novelty featured on the cover of *Life* on November 1, declaring Valentino the “idol of the new generation, the new symbol of modern luxury”.
And the hits never stopped. Valentino dresses Hepburn, Taylor, princesses, queens; film director Luchino Visconti attends his fashion shows, as does Andy Warhol, who also paints him. By 1972 Valentino has homes in Rome, Capri and New York, and his company employs 4,000 people and makes 600 outfits a year, including three ready-to-wear collections (two for women, one for men), sold in more than 30 global boutiques. A decade later he’s the first living designer to have a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Vreeland, by then special consultant to the Costume Institute, invites him. “Valentino’s women can stand only in an art museum,” she declares. Warhol, Calvin Klein, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Placido Domingo, Brooke Shields, Liza Minnelli and even Muhammad Ali are among the invited glitterati.
In 1995, he buys Château de Wideville, 20km outside Versailles. Built in 1580, it was the residence of Madame de la Vallière, Louis XIV’s mistress. With Jay Gatsby-like affluence, Valentino has fresh mozzarella flown by private plane from Italy to his castle each day. The plane also has a row of seats to accommodate his five dogs. Meantime, he’s the red-carpet Oscar-glory go-to for all and sundry. Halle Berry (1996), Julia Roberts (2001), Jennifer Lopez (2003) and Cate Blanchett (2005), and etc … One year later he and Giammetti both appear in *The Devil Wears Prada* – on which note, expect plenty of Valentino references in this year’s sequel; the brand’s Rockstud shoes (from autumn/winter 2010) appeared to fanfare both ecstatic and detrimental in the trailer.
Valentino and lifelong business partner Giancarlo Giammetti
Italy has lost two fashion legends in the blink of an eye. Valentino was always the dramatic one; Giorgio Armani, who also conquered America, the minimalist. Valentino called Giorgio Armani “a friend, never a rival”, saying he could only ever “bow to his immense talent”. Unlike Armani, Valentino resisted the urge to go mainstream. The point was to be aloof, not accessible. And where Valentino extravaganced, Armani restrained. Vava was colour, Giorgio was neutrality; two sides of a supremely beautiful couture coin.
One year after the Valentino brand’s 45th anniversary in 2007, at which Karl Lagerfeld had famously told him, “Compared to us, the rest are making rags,” Valentino ended both fashion week and his career in the Rodin Museum gardens in Paris with his final couture collection. “I’m the luckiest person in the world,” he said.
As were those who wore his gilt-edged gownsomeness. Valentino made every woman he dressed a masterpiece, an artwork, a red brushstroke of lasting wonder. His flowing, cascading skeins followed every step his muses took, like a night sky threading and beading stars into constellations and galaxies, cosmic glamour. Ziegfeld Girl.
“I have succeeded because through all these decades, I was always concerned about making beautiful clothes,” Valentino once said. “Let’s forget fashion. I want to make a girl who, when she’s dressed and arrives some place, people turn and say, ‘You look so sensational!’ And maybe I am here, today, because I always believed in this and I always try to do my best.” And oh-so-beautifulest.
*This story first appeared on [Prestige Hong Kong](https://www.prestigeonline.com/hk/style/a-tribute-to-valentino-garavani-emperor-of-elegance/).*
The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication. |
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