Valentino

 

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani
Personal Information
Name	Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani
Nationality	Italian
Birth date	May 11 1932 (1932--) (age 75)
Birth place	Voghera, Lombardy
Education	Ecole des Beaux Arts Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne
Working Life
Label Name	Valentino

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, best known as Valentino (born 11 May, 1932) is an Italian fashion designer. His fashion house is among the world's most famous haute couture and ready-to-wear fashion empires.

The Paris years

He became interested in fashion while in middle school in his native Voghera, Lombardy, Italy, when he apprenticed under his aunt Rosa and local designer Ernestina Salvadeo, an aunt of noted artist Aldo Giorgini).

At 17 Valentino moved to Paris to pursue this interest with the help of his mother Teresa de Biaggi and his father Mauro Garavani. There he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne.

His first Paris choice was Jacques Fath, then Balenciaga. He then found apprentice jobs with Jean Desses where he used to help style icon countess Jacqueline de Ribes sketch her dress ideas. He then joined Guy Laroche for 2 years. At Desses, Valentino sketched furiously, between helping with window dressing and greeting clients for the daily 2:30 p.m. private showings. Most of his early sketches were lost. At a Rome exhibition in 1991 a smattering went on display and current clients at that time such as Marie Hélène de Rothschild and Elizabeth Taylor marveled that the DNA of Valentino's style was already apparent in the layers of white pleats and animal prints.

After five years, Valentino left Jean Desses under a cloud over an incident about prolonging a vacation in St. Tropez that still makes him wriggle uncomfortably today. Rescued by his friend Guy Laroche, he joined his "tiny, tiny" fashion house. Anyway just when he had been offered the French equivalent of a green card and after discussions with his parents, he decided to return to Italy and set up in Rome in 1959.

Rome: la dolce vita and his encounter with Giancarlo Giammetti

In 1959 Valentino left Paris and moved back to Italy with his lover, French socialite Gerald Nanty and opened a fashion house in Rome on the posh Via Condotti with the backing of his father and an associate of his. More than an atelier, the premises resembled a real "maison de couture", being it very much on the line of what Valentino had seen in Paris: everything was very grand and models flew in from Paris for his first show.

On 31 July 1960 Valentino met at the Café de Paris on the Via Veneto in Rome Giancarlo Giammetti. One of three children, Giammetti was in his second year of architecture school, living at home with his parents in the haut bourgeois Parioli section of Northern Rome. His father owned an electronics store near the Via Veneto. That day Giammetti gave Valentino a lift home in his little Fiat and a friendship as well as a long-lasting partnership started. The day after Giammetti was to leave for Capri for vacation and by coincidence Valentino was also going there so they met again in the island 10 days later. Giammetti would shortly after abandon the University for good to become Valentino's business partner.

Giammetti's entrepreneurial genius will prove fundamental to the worldwide expansion and success of the House. Thanks to Giammetti, Valentino was able to focus on the creative aspect of design leaving all business intricacies to Giammetti. When Giammetti arrived, the business situation of Valentino's atelier was in fact not brilliant: in one year he had spent so much money that his father's associate pulled out of the business, so that Valentino had to fight against bankruptcy. Valentino already had a passion for luxury and would spend too much money on expensive fabrics never thinking about the financial aspects of his fashion business.

Valentino and Giammetti were told to start a new company and so they did. Under Giammetti's wing Valentino business got under control and things were ready for international success.

Breakthrough in Florence

Valentino's international debut took place in 1962 in Florence, the Italian fashion capital of the time. His first show at the Pitti Palace was welcomed as a true revelation and the young couturier was submerged by orders from foreign buyers and enthusiastic comments on the press.

After the breakthrough show in Florence, Valentino started to dress the ladies of the international best-dressed crowd such as his acquaintance from the Paris years Countess Jacqueline de Ribes and New York socialites Babe Paley and Jayne Wrightsman.

In 1966, confident of his client base, he moved his shows from Florence to Rome and there, two years later, he had one of his greatest triumphs, an all-white collection, which became famous for the "V" logo he designed.

By the mid-1960s he was already considered the undisputed maestro of Italian Couture, receiving in 1967 the Neiman Marcus Award, the equivalent of an Oscar in the field of fashion. The Begum Aga Khan, Farah Diba, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Marella Agnelli and Princess Margaret were already customers as well as personal friends.

Getting Jackie

In 1964 Jacqueline Kennedy had seen Gloria Schiff, the twin sister of the Rome-based fashion editor of American Vogue and Valentino's friend Consuelo Crespi, wearing an ensemble in two pieces in black organza at a party. Jackie called Gloria Schiff to know the name of the designer and found out it was some Valentino. In September 1964, Valentino had a show at the Waldorf-Astoria for a benefit. Since Jackie wanted to see the clothes, he sent his saleslady, along with a model, to Jackie's apartment on Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Kennedy ordered six outfits and from then on she became a devout client and a friend. She then bought six of his couture dresses, all in black and white, to wear during her year of mourning after J.F.K.’s death. Valentino later on would also design the white dress that Jackie wore to her wedding with Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Jacquline Kennedy also has designers such as Cocoa from Chanel.

Throughout the 1970s Valentino spent considerable time in New York City where his presence was embraced by social personalities such as Vogue's editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland and art identities such as Andy Warhol.

Love and family

Valentino and Giammetti were together for 12 years. Neither ever discussed their relationship with anyone outside their closest circle of friends, not even with their mothers. Valentino's mother, Teresa, moved from Voghera to Rome to help with the business. Eventually both his parents moved to Rome and lived with Valentino. Teresa Garavani and Lina Giammetti lived with their sons until the women died, Teresa in 1977 and Lina in 1996.

The Accademia Valentino

1989 marked the opening of the Accademia Valentino, designed by Architect Tommaso Ziffer, a cultural space located near his atelier in Rome, for the presentation of art exhbitions. The next year, encouraged by their friend Elizabeth Taylor, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti created L.I.F.E., an association for the support of AIDS-related patients, which benefits from the activities of the Accademia Valentino.

From HDP group to Marzotto group

In 1998 Valentino and his partner Giancarlo Giammetti sold the company for approximately $300 million to HdP, an Italian conglomerate controlled, in part, by the late Gianni Agnelli, the head of Fiat. In 2002, Valentino S.p.A., with revenues of more than $180 million, was sold by HdP to Marzotto Apparel, a Milan-based textile giant, for $210 million.

It was rumored that HDP was displeased with Valentino’s and Giammetti’s personal expenses, a claim Giammetti has bristled at: businessmen have a perspective of fashion which is completely old-fashioned, they believe fashion is a little show with models-beautiful girls they would like to know-who walk on the runway. They don’t know how much work is behind it, and how important the image of the founder and the designer is for the company. You cannot talk about the dresses of Valentino without thinking about him, and when you think about him, you think about the glamorous life he leads, and all that adds to the product(Vanity Fair, August 2004).

Glamour for glamour

It is difficult to deny that Valentino in his long career has created some of the most sophisticated dresses to be seen and worn, particularly for the evening, the time of the day in which his flamboyant and opulent style has expressed itself at the best, however, when it comes to considering the general output of his work, and its relevance in the history of fashion, things change. Compared to the influence and innovations of such great masters as Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and ultimately Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino's style can be seen as much more conservative and fixed. His concept of elegance and beauty is basically an exercise in glamour for the sake of glamour itself. Inventive as it may be it lacks the modernity, the conceptual depth and the daring spirit that has marked the work of the above mentioned designers, particularly that of the most influential of his contemporaries (and in general the most influential post war designer), Yves Saint Laurent. When one looks retrospectively to his collections, (and the recent celebration in Rome is an occasion to do this) it is possible to see clearly that he has always designed thinking only and exclusively for women of the so called jet set, the vacuous and glittering world of the great socialites, towards which he always had a particular craving. The Italian designer has never translated the Zeitgeist into his fashion, remaining constantly hooked to the more abstract imperative of a glamourized concept of femminility. In this sense, there are no sociological traces to be found in his creations, as there are in the collections of the four French masters or, more recently, in those of Jean Paul Gaultier and Gianni Versace, two of the most acute interpreters of fashion as a mirror reflecting social and cultural changes. All of Valentino's talent has been put at the service of a romanticised notion of what the upper crust of society is, and consequently, of how a women belonging to it must dress and behave. This woman is more the fabrication of Hollywood in the 30ies-40ies (and all of his work, this is its main limit, is foundamentally tied to the period of the mythical stars such as Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Merle Oberon and Joan Crawford), than anything else. At 75 years of age, Valentino cannot but go on doing what he has already done, even if most of his creations (but this issue concerns haute couture as a whole) seems anachronistic and too elaborate for today standards of life, even for the very rich for whom they are produced.

Legion d'Honneur

On Thursday, 6 July 2006 President Chirac of France awarded Valentino with final jewel in the crown of his achievements: Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur from the country where he arrived as a 17-year-old Italian boy - and fell in love with haute couture. "I am very honored," said Valentino, who has gleaned awards from across the world from his native Italy to America. "French people are charming, adorable but not extremely generous with foreigners, but they believe in what they do. I feel proud in exchange because what I did in restoration is something I did for La France." (Herald Tribune) Valentino was referring to restoring Wideville, his Louis XIII chateau outside Paris.

Patrons of the art

Both Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti are renowned for their extensive collection of art spread among their homes around the world including Picasso, Cy Twombly, Balthus, Damien Hirst.

High Living

Valentino and Giametti's lifestyle has always been flamboyant to the extreme. John Fairchild, editor-at-large at Women's Wear Daily and W, told Vanity Fair (August 2004): Valentino and Giancarlo are the kings of high living. Every other designer looks and says, ‘How do they live the way they do?’ I don’t think they made the money that Valentino and Giancarlo did, because Giancarlo knows how to make money. If they did, they didn’t spend the money like Valentino. No other designer ever did. When the terrorism first started in Rome - the period when the Red Brigades were kidnapping people - Valentino was riding around in a bulletproof Mercedes. And do you know what color the Mercedes was? Red. My God, I thought, you must want to get blown up.

Valentino's big family

An enlarged family: Giancarlo, Carlos, Charlene, Anthony and Sean

Observers have often noticed how Valentino always seems to move surrounded by a court of friends which has become a real family for him. This court always comprises his business associate and ex boyfriend Giancarlo Giammetti, his current boyfriend American bag and jewel designer Bruce Hoeksema, Brazilian brothers Sean and Anthony Souza, as well as their parents Carlos Souza and socialite Charlene Shorto de Ganay, Souza's ex-wife, who are both Valentino's PR. Carlos Souza met Valentino and Giammetti in 1973 in Rio de Janeiro when he was 18 years old. Valentino and Giammetti are also the godfathers of Anthony and Sean.

Giammetti confided to Vanity Fair that "this family has stayed together because of me, because when Valentino gets mad he cuts - that is that. I remember when Carlos left and moved to Brazil and married Charlene. Valentino refused to speak to him, but I always talked to Carlos. Then one day Carlos called and said he had a baby boy, Sean. I handed the phone to Valentino, and he started to cry and cry".

Bruce Hoeksema

As affirmed in an interview with American Vanity Fair he has been romantically involved, since 1982, with American jewel and bag designer Bruce Hoeksema, a former model who was a vice president of the house of Valentino until 1998.

Spanish muses: Nati Abascal and Rosario Nadal

Valentino all along his career has been deeply inspired by many glamorous women. Some of them have become very close friends, making up what is referred to as the Valentino's "family". This includes Spanish socialites Nati Abascal, a former model who was married to the Duke of Feria, and Rosario of Bulgaria, the wife of Prince Kyril of Bulgaria. Valentino met Nati Abascal in 1968 at a party when she was a 19 year-old-model and brought her to Capri. Rosario of Bulgaria met Valentino in her native Mallorca in the 90's via Carlos Souza at a club.

Another close friend of Valentino is his former PR French-Brazilian Georgina Brandolini, who worked for Valentino for 18 years before leaving for Balmain and ultimately starting a fashion career on her own.

The Valentino entourage often travels together everywhere around the world for vacation, moving from one or the other Valentino and Giammetti's various homes around the world and in summer time to the yacht, where Giammetti, for a period in the 90s, made everyone except Valentino do needlepoint.

Valentino's PR Daniela Giardina, architect Tommaso Ziffer, a close friend of Giancarlo Giammetti, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow are also part of the group. Since Marzotto group's acquisition of Valentino from HDP group, Matteo Marzotto and her socialite mother, Marta Marzotto, often join the party.

Maude, Margot, Monty, Molly, Milton and Maggie

Valentino adores dogs to the point that he once named a second line of clothing after his late pug Oliver. Today Valentino owns six pugs: the mother, Molly; her sons, Milton and Monty; and her daughters, Margot, Maude and Maggie. When traveling on his 14-seat Challenger jet, three cars are needed to move Valentino and his entourage to the airport: one to move Valentino and Giammetti, another for the luggage and the staff and a third to transport five of six Valentino's pugs as one of them, Maude, always travels with Valentino.

Giammetti told Vanity Fair (August 2004): Valentino is embarrassed to be seen traveling with so many dogs. People look at him enough as it is. He often asks his valets to bring the pugs out of the car after he has boarded the plane, sometimes in two shifts so that there seem to be fewer animals. After take-off Maude is released by a butler. She runs forward and jumps up on Valentino's lap, but before she can settle in, another staff member appears with a light-blue linen cloth, which he unfurls and placed under the dog to minimize the effects of shedding. At lunchtime Maude is returned to her fellow pugs.

Movie appearance

In 2006 Valentino did a cameo role as himself in the hit movie The Devil Wears Prada. One of the DVD's featurettes is called "Getting Valentino" and shows an interview of the designer and Valentino backstage with the movie's actresses, Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, and his associate Giancarlo Giammetti and his PR Carlos de Souza and Charlene Shorto de Ganay.

Valentino Museum

During the festivities for the 45th year of Valentino's career the Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni accounced that the site of the Valentino museum will a building in via San Teodoro in Rome between the Palatine hill and the Bocca della Verità (mouth of truth).

45 years of Valentino: 6 - 8 July 2007, Rome

In order to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Valentino's career a fashion extravaganza took place in Rome between 6th and 8th July 2007. Festivities started on Thursday 5th July with a dinner for Valentino's assistants and employees at Ristorante Gusto and ended on Sunday 8th July with the launch of a perfume and a brunch at the French Academy of Villa Medici.

The main five exclusive golden invitation cards have been sent from the Valentino headquarters for the main weekend's events:

• 6 July 2007 at 7:30 pm: inauguration of the exhibit "Valentino in Rome, 45 years of style" designed by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda at the ancient sacrificial altar Ara Pacis showcasing Valentino's most important creations from the past 45 years. Valentino has gone through his archives and his clients' closets to narrow down his choices to about 300.
• 6 July 2007 post-exhibit gala dinner at the Temple of Venus in the Imperial Forum. Dating back to 135 A.C. and dedicated to Emperor Hadrian the forum had never been opened to any event. Oscar-winning designer Dante Ferretti (The Aviator, Gangs of New York, The Age of Innocence) re-created the monument's long-lost columns in fibre glass, a special procedure called anastilosys, and choreographed a spectacular performance by high-wire ballerinas (costumed in exaggerated versions of the designer's ball gowns or signature lipstick-red evening dresses), who moved with poetic grace to Maria Callas's haunting arias, with the Coliseum, bathed in red and mauve light, as a breathtaking backdrop. The plexigas structure remained for the summer for tourists to enjoy. Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli also revealed that Valentino contributed to the restoration of the Temple with a donation of 200,000 euros.
• 7th July at 5.00 pm: fashion show for 1000 people. For the first time after 16 years Valentino's Haute Couture fashion show will not take place in Paris during the HC fashion week but in Rome. Socialite and long-time Valentino fan Marina Palma took over the fashionable Bolognese restaurant for a tribute lunch before the international guest list set off for the designer's bravura couture runway show.

The fashion setting was two halls called Sala Incisa and Sala Baglivi of the restructured 16th century Santo Spirito in Saxia complex, next to Castel Sant'Angelo and the Vatican. Valentino showed about 61 couture dresses, a record number considering a HC show never shows more than 40 gowns. The collection referenced many of the leitmotifs revealed in the retrospective at Ara Pacis and was a tour de force of the flawless and unmatchable techniques that Valentino's brilliant workrooms. The music segued from Mahler's Fifth to Maria Callas's hauntingly beautiful rendition of Puccini's 'O Mio Babbino Caro' as Valentino took his bow.

An impressive roster of fellow designers who had gathered to pay homage—Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Donatella Versace, Tom Ford, Diane von Furstenberg, Carolina Herrera, Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik, and Philip Treacy among them—led the standing ovation, which drew tears from the habitually unflappable designer, who embraced Giancarlo Giammetti on the runway.'It was the most fantastic collection,' said Princess Firyal of Jordan backstage. 'I'm about to cry, too.

• The post-show gala dinner and ball took place in the Parco dei Daini at the Villa Borghese. There Dante Ferretti had created a spectacular Brighton Pavilion-inspired tent, with palm-tree columns and red, black, and mirrored walls, in the gardens. Guests included Princess Caroline of Monaco, Anna Wintour, former Persian Empress Farah Diba, Karl Lagerfeld, Princesses Marie-Chantal of the Hellenes, Rosario of Bulgaria, Fyrial of Jordan as well as Mayor Walter Veltroni. Other movie stars flocked too: Uma Thurman, Ann Hathaway, Sarah Jessica Parker in black draperies, Sienna Miller in an ostrich-feather crinoline gown, Jennifer Hudson in a gown with a train, Eva Mendes in a black version of the designer's iconic 1965 red crepe sheath (the original was encased in a giant red Perspex box at the entrance to his retrospective).

Socialites included Daphne Guinness in a black-and-white lace flamenco dress with silver platforms and ostrich-feather eyelashes and Lita Livanos, Sheetal Mafatlal, and Rena Sindi, Nada Kirdar, Lynn Wyatt (in the red taffeta ruffles of a dress Valentino made for her 25 years ago that she found in her attic), Allison Sarofim in a coral-beaded 1960s Valentino, Eugenia Niarchos and Phivos Istavrioglou, famous heir and socialite from Greece. Singer Annie Lennox held a surprise concert.

• Sunday, July 8: Valentino launched the house's latest perfume, Rock 'n Rose Couture and a giant book (see below).

In addition to the celebration in Rome, a tribute book written by Vanity Fair writer Matt Tyrnauer will be published in July by Taschen.

Italian fashion designer Valentino, who has dressed some of the world's most glamorous women, has announced that he is to retire. The 75-year-old has said he would step down in January. He celebrated 45 years in the industry this summer. [1]

Valentino movie at Sundance Movie Festival

Tyrnauer is also set to release a documentary about Valentino, three years in the making, at Sundance movie festival.

Rosso Valentino

Valentino's trademark red colour, known as rosso Valentino, is a combination of 100% magenta, 100% yellow and 10% black.

Timeline

• 1959 Having completed his fashion studies and an apprenticeship with Jean Desses and Guy Laroche, Valentino starts up his first studio in Rome
• 1960 Begins his collaboration with Giancarlo Giammetti, who manages the commercial development of the House of Valentino
• 1962 His first collection at the international fashion Gotha in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, is a triumphant success
• 1965 Valentino is recognized as the top name in Italian Haute Couture
• 1967 He is awarded the Neiman Marcus Prize in Dallas (the equivalent of an Oscar in the world of Fashion)
• 1968 Valentino's reputation is secured with the enormous success of his "Collezione Bianca", the first clothes and accessories to have the magic "V" label Designs the wedding dress worn by Jacqueline Kennedy for her marriage to Aristotle Onassis.
• 1969 Begins his Boutique line of clothes and opens the first Valentino shop in Milan
• 1970 Launch of his first Ready-to-Wear collections Opening of Valentino boutiques in Rome and New York
• 1971 Opening of the first menswear shop in Via Condotti
• 1975 First fashion show of his Ready-to-Wear collection in Paris
• 1976 Opens a boutique in Tokyo
• 1978 Launch of the Valentino perfume at a gala evening in Paris, at the Theater des Champs Elysees
• 1982 Publication of the book "Valentino", edited by Franco Maria Ricci 20 September, Valentino presents his Autumn/Winter collection at the Metropolitan Museum in New York
• 1984 Valentino celebrates his twenty-fifth year in the business and receives an official award from the Minister for Industry
• 1985 He is awarded the Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito by the President of Italy
• 1986 Receives the highest decoration possible in Italy, the Cavaliere di Gran Croce, from the President
• 1989 First show of the Haute Couture collection in Paris
• 1990 In February, Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti found L.I.F.E (initials in Italian for "Fighting, Informing, Building, Teaching"), an association working for the fight against Aids. The Accademia Valentino is also officially opened to the public with an exhibition of painters of the Roman School Exhibition of "The Art of Cartier" at the Accademia Valentino Publication of the book "Valentino: Trent'Anni de Magia", by Leonardo arte.
• 1991 To celebrate his 30th year in the fashion business, an exhibition entitled "Valentino: Thirty Years of Magic" is organized in Valentino's honour by the Mayor of Rome at the Capitole Museum, while the Accademia Valentino presents a retrospective of his designs. Creation of the perfume Vendetta for men and women.
• 1992 Exhibition at the Accademia Valentino entitled: "La seduzione da Boucher a Warhol" The "Valentino: Thirty Years of Magic"' exhibition is invited to go to New York to coincide with the fifth centenary celebrations of the discovery of America. Valentino is invited by the Chinese government to stage a show in Beijing* 1994 In January, Valentino presents his first ever costume designs at the Eisenhower Theatre in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Center, Washington, for an opera entitled "The Dream of Valentino", based on the life of the movie star Rudolf Valentino
• 1995 Valentino's return to Italy is celebrated on 14 January in Florence with a fashion show at the Stazione Leopolda, over thirty years his first show at the Palazzo Pitti. The Mayor of Florence awards him the "Premio speciale dell'arte nella moda"
• 1996 Valentino is named Cavaliere del Lavoro
• 2004 launch of V perfume which will be followed by V for men
• 2006 Opens a boutique on Newbury Street in Boston
• 2006 President Chirac awards Valentino of the Legion d'Honneur
• 2007 Opens a boutique in Bangkok
• 2007 Opens a boutique in Honolulu on the Waikiki beachwalk (Kalakaua Avenue)
• 2007 -4September: Valentino announces his retirement

[2] or http://www.vogue.co.uk/vogue_daily/story/story.asp?stid=46999

• 2007 October 4, Valentino shows his last fashion show.http://www.style.com/fashionshows/collections/S2008RTW/review/VALENTIN

External links

• "Official Valentino Website"
• Paris Fashion Show 2007 - Valentino spring and summer collection gellery
• "Getting Valentino" featurette - Devil Wears Prada
• a long and detailed article on Valentino by Michael Specter
• Oprah's Valentino special
• Martha Stewart's Valentino special
• "Valentino-Fashion Press"
• Valentino's profile in the FMD-database

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