Carmine combined with scarlet with overtones of orange – a new color, before which an old lady at the opera house at Barcelona saw Valentino Garavanni being as impressive as the lady.
The colour that reached the fashion world several years after, in 1959 which is a strapless cocktail dress of draped tulle, has since then been named after him – Valentino red, doubling as the titular name of the Italian fashion group.
According to the book “Rosso” (Red), which was published in 2022, Valentino wrote: “I believe that a woman in red is always good and she is the ideal model of a heroine. He would always make one of his collections have at least one red dress.
One of the foremost fashion designers in Italy, Valentino, passed on in his foundation on Monday in his Rome home. He was 93 years old.
The reason behind the demise was not clear at once.
VALENTINO: ‘I LOVE BEAUTY’
Valentino was one of the final of an era of designers offering up Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld, before fashion became a very businesslike enterprise equally run by financiers and marketing managers as by the couturiers.
He reached the peaks of high fashion and is the first Italian to walk the catwalks of exclusive Paris haute couture.
He was also a film fan and when he was a young man, his aspiration was to dress the beautiful ladies of the silverscreen, in his words, among them the Hollywood stars of 1950s like Lana Turner and Judy Garland.
He was later to design the wedding gown of Elizabeth Taylor with the most preferred vendor of numerous Oscar winners such as Sharon Stone and Penelope Cruz even though the designer was eventually Valentino.
His romantic designs so simple a priori were rich in the intricacy of detail. “I love beauty,” Valentino said. “It is not my fault. And I do know what all women want, they want to be beautiful.
His own-line business, which he sold off prior to his retirement, in 2008, created a business empire that the same designer also designed the clothes worn by Jackie Kennedy.
‘YOU NEED A LOT OF PATIENCE’
Valentino was the only son of one whose father owned an electrical supplies company in the south of Milan called Voghera.
He began to draw and value expensive garments when he was little, hence studied couture in Milan and Paris where he was in apprenticeship to a designer Jean Desses. In 1960, he went back home, establishing his own fashion house in the centre at Rome.
In the same year, Elizabeth Taylor attended the premiere of blockbuster, Spartacus in a white Valentino gown.
In the same year, 1960, he also met Giancarlo Giammetti in a Cafe in Rome. He would later make Giammetti his business and life partner.
At least something that cannot be defined is to spend your entire life with a person, everything, happy, sad, passionate, disillusioned, and so on, Giorgio Valentino said about him.
Giammetti assumed the managerial aspect of the business with creative issues being left to the designer.
It is similar: it takes long time to be with Valentino as a friend, lover, and employee: you have to be patient, as the designer declared in the last two years of his career in the film Valentino: The Last Emperor.
The georgette fabrics used by Valentino, ruffles of chiffon and expensive embellishments and patented budellini technique, a long strip of sheep wool rolled into tubes, wrapped in silk and stitched together, are some of the secrets that earned him numerous awards, such as the highest civilian honor in France in 2006.
He was not on fame, nor riches, nor anything that had any effect on him believed Giammetti at the time. He remains the small boy I met 45 years ago.
Valentino was superstitious and introverted, loved skiing, and pugs as well as chocolate. In 2017, he told Corriere that he was afraid of death.
The Perfect Time to say Adieu
In Rome he also met Giancarlo Giammetti in a cafe in the year 1960. Giammetti would end up becoming his business and life partner.
To live with a human being throughout your life, every single moment, every thing good or bad, excitement, disillusionment is something nobody can define, and that is what Valentino said about him.
The managerial component of the business was assumed by Giammetti leaving creative issues to the designer.
It is no different to be a friend of Valentino, a lover and an employee: you must wait a long time to be full of the designer, as a friend, lover and as an employee as it is possible to be in the last two years of his career, as documented in Valentino: The Last Emperor, a documentary that accompanied the designer within the final two years of his career.
Valentino crafted georgetta fabrics, chiffon ruffles, superficial appliqued fabrics, his unique technique of budellini, the long strands of sheep wool rolled into tubes and wrapped with silk and then stitched together, earned him numerous awards, including the highest civilian distinction of France, in 2006.
His fame and fortune, Giammetti said, did not make him any different. The 45 years old says, he is still the little guy I met 45 years ago.
Valentino was an introvert and superstitious person who was fond of chocolate, skiing and his pugs. In 2017, he described himself to Corriere as being afraid of death.
He impressed Rome in 2007 by throwing extravagant parties in honour of his decades of service in fashion and the three-day event was characterised by dinners, parties and exhibitions in which he invited thousands of guests who flew in to join the celebrations.
Months later he declared he would no longer design in his company which he no longer owned after selling the firm nearly ten years prior to that to an amount of about 300 million dollars.
And so, I have chosen that now is the right time to make a farewell to the world of fashion, said he. I should gladly leave the party, I said to myself, when it is yet full, according to the English.
His final catwalk presentation was in January 2008 in Paris, which is a city that he referred to as his second home and this was the place that had taught him to love fashion and life.
In 2012, Qatari fund Mayhoola purchased the business that was named after him at 700 million euros. In 2023, the French luxury Kering purchased 30 percent of the business, with a pledge to fully acquire the business through to 2026 though later postponed to 2028 at the earliest.
Valentino and Giammetti continued with their engagements in arts sponsorship. In 2025, their establishment unveiled PM23 gallery in the centre of Rome alongside the Valentino headquarters.
It was only appropriate that the first exhibition – “Horizons/Red” – was dedicated to the colour that Valentino is most related to.
It is not merely a colour, Red, as Giammetti said at the time. It is a symbolic and aesthetic power of a fantastic strength.
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