The emperorso he was nicknamed, because from Rome, with his clothes, he conquered the whole world. The last of the emperorsas is the title of a well-known docufilm dedicated to him (Valentino, The Last Emperor), with that “last” which seems to mean the end of the great era of Couture.
Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, born in Voghera in 1932, known in the world, just like the great emperors, with only the first first name, today – May 11, 2022 – turns off 90 candles. Ninety years of life and almost fifty of career that led to the creation of the myth.
SCROLL THE ARTICLE TO THE END TO DISCOVER 10 CURIOSITIES YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT VALENTINO
The passion for fashion was born for Valentino at a very young age. He is but a little boy when he starts attending a fashion school in Milan and, at the age of 17, he left for Paris. In the capital of couture, he trained in the ateliers of Jean Dèsses and Guy Laroche where he learned the haute couture techniques that would become a distinctive feature of his creations. It was 1960 when, back in Rome, he opened his tailoring workshop in Via Condotti.
However, it will be the meeting with Giancarlo Giammetti, then an architecture student, to mark the turning point. The two complement each other, if Valentino is a creative genius, Giammetti has a natural intuition for business and communication. A partnership is born, destined to last for a lifetime, which leads the Maison to success, and Valentino is entitled to enter the collective imagination as one of the greatest couturiers in history.
From this moment on, his career is constantly on the rise. Valentino bases his own recognizable aesthetic codes, the very high tailoring workmanship that becomes distinctive of his creations, his unique and unmistakable color nuance – the legendary Valentino red. Successes and awards follow one another, admirers and bonds of friendship and collaboration with Hollywood stars and style icons. Valentino’s dresses appear on red carpets and worn by famous brides. Among his fans and muses also Jacqueline Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn and Liz Taylor.
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On 4 September 2007 Valentino retires to private life, leaving the party – are his words – when it is still full of people. The farewell to the scenes of the greatest Italian couturier occurs in conjunction with his forty-fifth year of career and is celebrated with an endless series of events, retrospective exhibitions and parties.
The Maison lives on. For a very brief parenthesis designed by Alessandra Facchinetti, then by the couple of faithful collaborators of the stylist Mariagrazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, and today by Pierpaolo Piccioli alone.
The style remains, timeless. The results of his tireless pursuit of beauty remain. There remains the inimitable elegance of his creations out of time and fashions.
BELOW, 10 THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT HIM:
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Valentino in 1999 in Rome with his models. Photo Pascal CHEVALLIER via Getty Images.1/10Valentino red, the birth of a color
Neither carmine nor purple, Valentino red is a unique and precise shade of redmade up of a specific combination of magenta, yellow and black. But how was it born? It is said that the Maestro, very young, while attending the Barcelona Opera, was struck by a guest dressed in red. From that moment on, red will become an integral part of his stylistic code, a cornerstone of the myth. It will be the same couturier to declare: “I think a woman dressed in red, especially in the evening, is gorgeous. She is, in the crowd, the perfect image of the heroine“.
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A young Valentino in Rome in 1967. Photo Getty Images.2/10The turning point in Florence
The first successthe one that marks the turning point for the brand, it is dated 1962. At Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Valentino takes part in the event conceived by the Marquis Bista Giorgini for the promotion of Italian fashion. The young designer is offered the last available time on the last day of the shows, when the buyers are usually already gone. But – as Giancarlo Giammetti tells – a rumor had spread enfant prodige arrived from Paris, and they were all left: we spent the night writing the orders received from all the most important boutiques in the world.
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Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in 1968 in second marriage wearing a Valentino dress. Photo Getty Images.3/10The White Collection and Jackie Kennedy
Another key moment in the history of the Maison is the presentation of the iconic 1968 White Collection, which has remained in the collective memory. If red is in fact Valentino’s lucky color, distinctive of his creations since the beginning, white is the shade that allows him to win international fame and the favor of Jacqueline Kennedy. For her wedding with Aristotle Onassis on October 20, 1968, the former first lady chooses an ivory lace dress from that collection.
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Julia Roberts at the 2001 Academy Awards. Photo Vinnie Zuffante / Getty Images.4/10The first vintage at the Oscars was a Valentino
Valentino has dressed numerous Academy Award-winning actresses, including Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and Cate Blanchett. Among all we remember the dress of Julia Roberts, worn to collect the Oscar as best actress for Erin Brockovich – Strong as the truth, and we remember it for a particularity: started the vintage choice on the red carpet. The black and white dress with a long train was not tailor-made for the actress, it was part of the Haute Couture ’92 collection and had already been worn by a local celebrity. Lorella Cuccarini had flaunted it on the Ariston stage on the occasion of the Sanremo Festival.
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Monica Vitti in The night1961. IMDB photo.5/10Valentino at the cinema
Cinema is a source of inspiration for Valentino, and there are many stars who have dressed Valentino on the screen, on the red carpet and in private life. Valentino’s first dress to appear in the cinema is the one worn by Monica Vitti in 1961 in The night by Michelangelo Antonioni. The black cocktail dress with small ruffles worn throughout the film was created for the actress in the atelier on Via Condotti in Rome.
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The devil wears Prada6/10Valentino actor
We remember him, interpreter of himself, next to Meryl Streep in the cult film The devil wears Prada. He is the protagonist of Valentino, the Last Emperorthe docufilm dedicated to him by journalist Matt Tyrnauer and which required 250 hours of filming between June and July 2007. But perhaps not everyone knows that his first appearance on the big screen dates back to 1955, when he appeared in the film French Cancan by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin and MarÃa Félix.
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Kristen McMenamy on the Valentino Haute Couture Spring-Summer 1993 runway, photo Victor VIRGILE / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.7/10The Maison’s distinctive tailoring processes
Born from the precious work of forty seamstresses in the Maison’s Roman atelier, Valentino’s Haute Couture dresses are masterpieces of haute couture. In addition to the iconic Valentino red, there are some particular processes that have become a distinctive element of his creations. Among the techniques that have made the history of the Maison there is the so-called page effectorganza discs sewn together to resemble the pages of a book, e the exclusive technique of guts – long and thin padded tubes used as elements to create 3D effects. Then there are sophisticated drapery techniques learned from Valentino in Paris in the 1950s in Jean Dessès’ atelier, and recurring decorative elements such as bows.
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With Elizabeth Taylor at the party to celebrate her 30-year career in fashion. Getty Images.8/10Liz Taylor got dresses in exchange for visibility
Liz Taylor was the first Hollywood star to wear Valentino. In 1961 the photos of the actress at the premiere of Spartacus in a white dress with a feather trim they went around the world. The actress went to Rome asking some well-deserved dress – these were his words – for such visibility. Thus began a friendship that lasted a lifetime.
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Valentino Haute Couture Spring-Summer 1992. Paris, January 1991. Photo Daniel SIMON / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.9/10The dress for peace
In 1991, during the Gulf War, Valentino created a spectacular white dress with embroidered the word “peace” in fourteen languages. A more current creation than ever, which demonstrated how fashion is an expression of the spirit of the times and can (and should) be the bearer of political messages.
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Pierpaolo Piccioli, Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino Garavani and Maria Grazia Chiuri in 2012. Photo Larry Busacca / Getty Images.10/10Pierpaolo Piccioli the Dauphin
When Valentino retired from the scene on 4 September 2007, it was difficult for the fashion world to imagine a successor who could carry on the legacy of the Maison. After a brief interlude with Alessandra Facchinetti in the role of creative director, I am Maria Grazie Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli to take over the style office. The two had worked side by side with the designer for ten years. It was Valentino himself who noticed them, and called them to develop the brand’s accessories division. In 2016 Chiuri left her position to become the creative director of Dior. Since then it has been Piccioli who has carried on the emperor’s legacy, succeeding in reworking the codes of the Maison in a contemporary key, with the approval of Valentino himself. Emulating the Maestro, the stylist even created a new shade of pink from the name Valentino Pink PP that colored the Fall-Winter 2022-23 fashion show.
Source: Vanity Fair
