The designer's influence not only set trends with his creations but also redefined pop culture and the global jet set through legendary friendships with film and music stars.
The news of Valentino Garavani's death shook the Italian fashion world on Monday. The designer passed away at his home in Rome, surrounded by loved ones. He was 93.
In tribute to the acclaimed designer, his body will lie in state at PM23 in Piazza Mignanelli 23 on Wednesday and Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The funeral will be held on Friday at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, located at Piazza della Repubblica 8, at 11 a.m.
The impact of Garavani's death was immediate. Although he formally retired from the industry in 2008, handing over control of his company—now a global empire—to Alessandro Michele, the designer's legacy continues to define the current face of Italian fashion. After his masterful haute couture show at the 1962 Pitti Immagine, “Rome and all of Italy were definitively placed on the international fashion map,” as industry chroniclers recalled in archival articles from the 1980s and 1990s. The origins of Italy’s impetus in haute couture can be traced back to names like Emilio Schubert, Vincenzo Ferdinandi, Jole Veneziani, and the Fontana sisters, along with houses such as Giovannelli-Sciarra and Simonetta Colonna. However, Valentino’s arrival “broke down the barrier separating French, Italian, and European fashion,” a transformation whose consequences extended into the following years with the emergence of prêt-à-porter and the new chapters in haute couture written by Gianni Versace and Armani.
From an industry perspective, Garavani represented “the last exponent of a great tradition of Italian couturiers who, since the 1970s, had been losing ground to the masters of prêt-à-porter.” His ability to inhabit two worlds, “haute couture on the one hand and ready-to-wear on the other,” made him a figure “both austere and hyper-popular in the collective consciousness of Italians,” according to analyses published in the specialized press.
An ostentatious life in the public eye
Valentino’s lifestyle was inseparable from his professional image. Journalists in the industry recalled scenes that helped cement her legend: “photographs with Jacqueline Onassis in Capri, castles in France and palaces in Rome, three hundred bespoke suits by Caraceni, rides in a Mercedes through the streets of the capital during the most tense moments of the Years of Lead, waltzes with Liz Taylor, her yacht T.M. Blue One visited by André Leon Talley, the famous pugs, and the birthday celebration in New York with Aretha Franklin, Plácido Domingo, and Bette Midler.”
However, her personal reserve never translated into public silence. Sources within the industry recalled that “she was never afraid to express her ideas or fight for her causes”: her dress for peace, created the same year as the Gulf War, and her early commitment to the fight against AIDS, as well as the founding of an academy in Rome bearing her name dedicated to the arts, confirmed the public dimension of her persona.
Valentino succinctly summarized his talents during his lifetime: “I only know how to do three things in life: clothes, decorating houses, and entertaining people.” This last skill cemented his reputation both among the New York elite of the 1970s and with the Italian public through the annual Donna Sotto le Stelle, the summer fashion show held on the steps of Trinità de’ Monti. “An image etched in the memory of at least two generations of Italians,” noted fashion journalists.
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