Valentino obit

Valentino Dies: Legendary Italian Fashion Designer Was 93

He was not on the list.

Legendary Italian Fashion Designer Valentino has died at the age of 93, his foundation announced on Monday.

The foundation said the designer, whose full name was Valentino Garavani, died in his home in Rome on January 19.

Across his career, Valentino dressed a host of stars including Sharon Stone, Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Barbra Streisand, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, and Monica Vitti.

His other famous clients included Jackie Kennedy for whom he designed the wedding dress for her second marriage to Aristotle Onassis in 1968.

The designer was born in the Northern town of Voghera in 1932 to a well-off bourgeois family. His mother named him after the 1920s Italian-born Hollywood film star Rudolph Valentino, and from a young age he obsessed with Hollywood glamor.

He enrolled at the L’Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne fashion school in Paris at the age of 17, and then secured apprenticeships in the workshop of fashion houses Balenciaga, Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche.

After a close to a decade living and working in Paris he returned to Rome and with the support of his parents set up his own fashion house close to Piazza di Spagna in 1960.

That same year, he met Giancarlo Giammetti who would become his lifelong partner and the business brains behind the Maison Valentino fashion house.

Valentino began to gain international fame in the early 1960s following a commission from Kennedy for six haute couture dresses in black and white, which she wore during her year of mourning following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

She became a life-long client with the wedding dress he would later design for her wedding to Onassis hailed as groundbreaking for the shortness of its length.

The fashion house would become synonymous with glamour and a jet-set life-style which Valentino embodied himself, splitting his time between statement luxury homes in Rome, New York, London, and Gstaad as well as France where he owned the Château de Wideville outside Paris.

Valentino and Giammetti were also known for their star-studded parties and receptions. Legendary among these was the three-day Valentino 45th anniversary party in Rome in 2007, spanning a fashion show, gala ball and concert by Annie Lennox, with guests including Mick Jagger and Claudia Schiffer.

That same year, the designer announced his retirement in 2008 and he delivered his last last haute couture show in Paris the following January. He continued to be make a splash on the social scene, hosting a special reception for Sofia Coppola at Château de Wideville in 2017.

With his career and image intertwined with the film and entertainment world, Valentino also made big screen cameo appearances in 2006 hit The Devil Wears Prada and Zoolander 2 in 2016.

He was also the subject of the 2008 documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor, following the designer nd his inner circle throughout various events including the 45th anniversary celebrations. It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2008.

Valentino and Giammetti sold Maison Valentino in 1998 for $300 million to German company HDP. It was then acquired by the Italian Marzotto textile family in 2002 and the Permira Fund in quick succession, before being sold to Qatari luxury investment group Mayhoola, which has controlled the brand since 2012.

In 2023, Kering acquired a 30% stake, with the fashion giant holding an option to buy the entire company in 2029.

Compatriot fashion designer Donatella Versace was among those who paid tribute to Valentino, writing on Instagram: “Today, we lost a true maestro who will forever be remembered for his art. My thoughts go to Giancarlo who never left his side for all these years.”

The foundation said Valentino would lay in state on Wednesday and Thursday in the fashion house’s historic headquarters in Piazza Mignanelli in Rome and that the funeral would take place at the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels and Martyrs on Friday.