FILE PHOTO: Italian designer Valentino Garavani waves as he arrives for the premiere of the film “Valentino: The Final Emperor” directed by Matt Tyrnauer of the U.S at La Fenice Theatre in Venice August 28, 2008. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photograph
A mixture of carmine and scarlet, with a touch of orange — a brand new hue impressed by an aged girl at Barcelona’s opera home whose magnificence struck a younger Valentino Garavani — grew to become one of the vital recognisable colors in trend.
Launched in 1959 with a strapless cocktail costume of draped tulle, the shade got here to be often known as “Valentino purple” and have become the signature of the Italian trend home that bears his title.
“I feel a lady wearing purple is at all times great, she is the proper picture of a heroine,” Valentino wrote in his 2022 ebook Rosso (Purple). He included at the least one purple costume in each assortment.
Valentino, one among Italy’s main trend designers, died on Monday at his residence in Rome, his basis stated. He was 93. The reason for dying was not instantly disclosed.
‘I like magnificence’
Valentino ranked alongside Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld as among the many final of a era of designers from an period earlier than trend grew to become a extremely business business pushed as a lot by financiers and entrepreneurs as by couturiers.
He was the primary Italian designer to indicate on Paris’s unique high fashion catwalks.
A movie fanatic, Valentino dreamed of dressing “the attractive women of the silver display screen”, together with Fifties Hollywood stars Lana Turner and Judy Garland. He later designed Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding ceremony robe and have become a favorite of Oscar winners resembling Sharon Stone and Penelope Cruz.
His romantic designs, typically deceptively easy, had been marked by intricate craftsmanship.
“I like magnificence,” Valentino stated. “It’s not my fault. And I do know what girls need: they need to be stunning.”
The designer, who additionally dressed Jackie Kennedy, constructed a worldwide enterprise empire beneath his title earlier than promoting it forward of his retirement in 2008.
‘You want a number of persistence’
Valentino was an solely baby, born right into a well-to-do household in Voghera, south of Milan, the place his father ran {an electrical} provides firm.
After exhibiting an early curiosity in drawing and couture, he studied trend in Milan and Paris, apprenticing beneath designer Jean Dessès. He returned to Italy in 1960 and opened his personal trend home in Rome.
That very same 12 months, Elizabeth Taylor wore a white Valentino robe to the premiere of Spartacus.
Additionally in 1960, Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti in a Roman café. Giammetti grew to become his enterprise companion and life companion, overseeing the business facet of the corporate whereas Valentino centered on design.
“To share life with an individual in your complete existence — each second, pleasure, ache, enthusiasm, disappointment — is one thing that can not be outlined,” Valentino stated of Giammetti.
FILE PHOTO: Veteran Italian designer Valentino Garavani poses through the opening of his exhibition on the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome July 6, 2007. Valentino will snub Paris and unveil his newest high fashion assortment in Rome to mark his forty fifth 12 months within the metropolis the place he received his begin. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi (ITALY)/File Photograph
“To be with Valentino as a buddy, as a lover and as an worker is a bit the identical: you want a number of persistence,” Giammetti stated within the documentary Valentino: The Final Emperor.
Valentino’s georgette materials, chiffon ruffles and ornate gildings, together with the unique budellini method utilizing hand-rolled wool wrapped in silk, earned him quite a few awards, together with France’s highest civilian honour in 2006.
“Fame and fortune didn’t change him,” Giammetti stated on the time. “He’s nonetheless the little man I met 45 years in the past.”
Superstitious and introverted, Valentino beloved chocolate, snowboarding and his pugs. In a 2017 interview, he stated he feared dying.
‘The proper second to say Adieu’
In 2007, Rome hosted lavish celebrations marking Valentino’s decades-long profession, culminating in exhibitions, dinners and events attended by hundreds of company from world wide.
Months later, he introduced his retirement.
“I’ve determined that that is the proper second to say adieu to the world of trend,” he stated. “Because the English say, I wish to depart the occasion when it’s nonetheless full.”
His remaining catwalk present befell in Paris in January 2008.
The Valentino trend home was acquired by Qatari funding fund Mayhoola for 700 million euros in 2012. French luxurious group Kering purchased a 30% stake in 2023, with an choice to take full management from 2026, later deferred to 2028 on the earliest.
Valentino and Giammetti remained energetic patrons of the humanities. Their basis opened the PM23 gallery in central Rome in 2025, subsequent to the Valentino headquarters. Its inaugural exhibition, Horizons/Purple, fittingly centered on the color most carefully related to the designer.
“Purple isn’t only a color,” Giammetti stated on the opening. “It’s a symbolic and aesthetic pressure.”
