Legendary fashion designer and master couturier founded his eponymous fashion house in Rome in the late 1950s with his long-time business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. And established an illustrious career often associated with his signature colour, Valentino Red. In 1998, they sold the ...
Legendary fashion designer and master couturier founded his eponymous fashion house in Rome in the late 1950s with his long-time business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. And established an illustrious career often associated with his signature colour, Valentino Red. In 1998, they sold the company, though Valentino continued as creative director. Shortly after his retirement in 2008, a feature-length documentary Valentino: The
Last Emperor was released. In late 2011, Valentino and Giammetti launched the Valentino Garavani Virtual Museum, a website and downloadable desktop application that makes Valentino’s archive available to be studied and experienced online. Thereafter, Valentino designed costumes for the New York City Ballet and the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome for La Traviata co-created with Giammetti. Established in 2017, the Valentino Garavani Foundation focuses not only on his archive but predominantly philanthropy.
Though accolades remain too many to list, one of the most recent in December 2023 was the British Fashion Awards' Outstanding Achievement Award at London's Royal Albert Hall.
Gstaad and Eagle Club habitué, aesthete, and gregarious host who adored the winters here, he both collected, in his chalet, the work as well as quoted the late French artists – husband and wife – François-Xavier (1927-2008) and Claude Lalanne (1924-2019): The supreme art, is the art of living.
ALAN NAZAR IPEKIAN
Read the February 2023 interview with Valentino online.
