Remembering Valentino Garavani

Valentino Garavani died peacefully at his Rome residence on Monday, surrounded by loved ones and, one imagines, the kind of light that photographers kill for. He was 93. His foundation said he died of natural causes, though really, what's natural about a man who spent seven decades making the impossible look effortless?

He will lie in state at Piazza Mignanelli 23 on January 21-22, and the funeral is Friday at the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

With Valentino's death—following Giorgio Armani last September and Karl Lagerfeld in 2019—we've now lost the last of the great triumvirate, the men who built fashion before it became a trillion-dollar algorithm. What remains though is a colour that bears his name, a logo that moved product by the millions, and the ghost of an idea that women should look, above all else, beautiful.

The Child From Voghera

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani was born on May 11, 1932, in Voghera, a small Lombardy town where his father sold electrical supplies and his mother let him be thoroughly spoiled. Named after silent film star Rudolph Valentino, the boy had custom shoes and designed his own blazer details while learning to sew from his Aunt Rosa. At 17, he left for Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, apprenticing at Jean Dessès, Guy Laroche, and Balenciaga before returning to Italy in 1959 with his father's money and Paris precision in his hands. He opened on Rome's Via Condotti and flew in Parisian models for his debut because he wasn't building an atelier—he was building a maison.

On July 31, 1960, Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti at Café de Paris on Via Veneto, where the architecture student gave him a lift in his Fiat. They met again in Capri days later, and Giammetti abandoned his university studies to become Valentino's business partner and lover. They remained romantically involved until Valentino turned 30, then spent the next five decades as two halves of a whole—Giammetti running the empire while Valentino dreamed in red. In 1998, they sold the company for $300 million, and by 2021 it was generating $1.36 billion in revenue.

At his death, Valentino was worth an estimated $1.5 billion.

The Birth Of Valentino Red

The origin story goes something like this: When young Valentino attended an opera in Barcelona one day, he saw a woman wearing a velvet gown and he was absolutely enamoured by her. That day, he decided then that if he became a designer, he would do lots of red.

And well, he did!

In his Spring/Summer 1959 collection, he introduced his first red dress (“La Fiesta”). It was a strapless tulle party number in a vivid, orange-tinged shade. By the time Pantone gave it a designation, Valentino Red was already a proper noun.

In 1999, celebrating 40 years in fashion, he showed 40 red dresses at Rome's Piazza di Spagna. For his final haute couture show in 2008, every model wore red before he took his last bow.

Hollywood & Valentino

What started his love affair on a grand stage was a Kennedy, after all.

In 1968, Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in a long-sleeved ivory lace Valentino with a mock turtleneck—pleated, knee-length, perfect. It came from his White Collection, the first time in modern fashion a logo became decoration.

That dress made him international, and then slowly turned him into a red carpet king.

We saw Julia Roberts in vintage black and white Valentino, accepting her Oscar in 2001; Cate Blanchett in butter-yellow silk, one-shouldered and perfect, winning Best Supporting Actress in 2004; Zendaya in custom scarlet at the 2022 Emmys after-party;  Anita Ekberg in black Valentino, swimming in the Trevi Fountain in "La Dolce Vita.”

The client list reads like a history of glamour itself: Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Princess Diana, Anna Wintour, Gwyneth Paltrow, Queen Rania of Jordan.

"I know what women want," he once said. "They want to be beautiful."

Building The Empire

Valentino truly lived the life he designed for. Perpetually tanned—"crème brûlée" complexion, they called it—always in crisp suits. A 152-foot yacht. Château de Wideville near Paris, a 17th-century castle with 280 acres and over a million roses, where he threw theme parties during fashion weeks. Chalet Gifferhorn in Gstaad. Homes in New York, London, Rome, Capri. Art by Picasso and Miró.

This was a man who believed in beauty without guilt, in luxury without irony. "I love a beautiful lady, I love a beautiful dog, I love a beautiful piece of furniture," he said in "The Last Emperor" documentary. "I love beauty, it's not my fault."

The Retirement

In 2007, Valentino celebrated his 45th anniversary with a three-day Roman blowout ending in a grand ball at Villa Borghese. In January 2008, he showed his final couture collection. Every model wore red as he took his last bow.

Now the brand is owned by Qatar's Mayhoola and France's Kering.

Valentino believed fashion must look outward, learn continuously, honour the cultures that inspire it. His designs balanced glamour with restraint. Bows, ruffles, lace, embroidery—feminine embellishments that added beauty without apology. Refined structure, romantic silhouettes, a clear point of view that never needed shock tactics to land.

"A man who expanded the limits of the possible," Alessandro Michele wrote in tribute, "with a rare delicacy, silent rigor and limitless love for beauty." Cindy Crawford called him "a true master of his craft." His foundation said he was "not only a constant guide and inspiration for all of us, but a true source of light, creativity and vision."