To tell the life of Valentino Garavani would take at least three books, one for each metamorphosis. Because yes, the story of the couturier who passed away on Monday at the age of 93 is one of dense interweavings, deep bonds and an obsessive pursuit of the ultimate form, the highest expression of beauty. Few people enter history under the name they were given at birth. Valentino is one of them.
Born in Voghera, where he is said to have developed a passion for drawing, Valentino embodied the perfect example of fashion’s second generation. First Florence, then Milan. A journey with Paris as its destination, to learn how to construct a garment. Starting from Rome, the city that adopted and embraced him. It is no coincidence that he was known as the Emperor of Fashion. Revolutionary and conservative at the same time. This is why retracing all the infinite paths of Valentino is, in truth, impossible.
The infinite paths of Valentino
It was in Rome that he founded his maison in 1959, but it was in Voghera, in the province of Pavia, that his passion for fashion was born. As a child, he showed a clear talent for drawing. He studied in Milan and, in 1949, flew to Paris. There he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. That choice alone speaks volumes about an ambition without equal: an Italian at the court of France. In Paris, Valentino learned how to transform a piece of fabric into the highest response to ugliness. He returned to Rome and met Giancarlo Giammetti, who would become his business partner and right-hand man, as well as his life companion for ten years.
In 1962 he presented his work in the Sala Bianca at Palazzo Pitti, then the foremost showcase of fashion. But his first truly defining collection dates to 1967, when a profusion of white dresses captivated the international press. Valentino was already Valentino, but he still needed consecration. That came thanks to Jackie Kennedy. The American First Lady wore one of his dresses for her husband’s funeral and then for her second wedding. And so began a story that lasted until 2007, when Valentino announced his retirement after 45 years of success. He chose to take his final bow with an haute couture show in Rome. The last dress was red, the colour that had sealed his place in history.
The birth of a colour
That red he had chosen almost by election. At the opera in Barcelona, amid a sea of dark colours, Valentino noticed a woman dressed in red. He could not get the image out of his mind. The rest is history. There is little point in listing all the women he dressed, from Sophia Loren to Julia Roberts. In the annals of fashion, no one counts so many stars, socialites, princesses and divas. His remains a living archive of gestures, proportions and silences.
Proof that a dress can contain an idea, that couture can become a higher, more demanding language, closer to transcendence than to consumption. In Rome, the hierarchy was simple: the Pope, and then him. An almost liturgical figure, surrounded by devotion. Because Valentino never merely created clothes; he imposed an absolute, non-negotiable vision. He showed that fashion can be discipline and opposition at once, that a colour can become destiny, that perfection is not obsession but an act of care towards those who inhabit the garment.
The final years
And then the end of the Empire. In 2008, he chose to step aside. Times had changed, and it was right to pass the torch. To Pierpaolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri, then in charge of accessories. It was them who created the iconic Rockstud: the low-heeled leather shoe adorned with studs. Once again, rigour and revolution. With Valentino disappears the last founder of a kingdom built from nothing. With no successors, because certain titles are not inherited. They simply come to an end.
Photo: Fondazione Garavani–Giammetti
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