The luminary was known for his elegant gowns, profound impacts on the industry, and, of course, that red hue
The fashion industry is mourning the loss of another titan.
Valentino Garavani, the Italian luminary whose glamorous designs defined decades of fashion, died at his home in Rome, his foundation announced last Monday. He was 93.
“The Maison remembers Valentino Garavani with deep emotion and profound affection,” the Valentino house said in a statement. “His unique style and innate elegance will remain forever. We share with heartfelt sympathy the grief of his loved ones, and we remain committed to preserving and elevating the valued creative, cultural, and human heritage he entrusted to us, upon which Maison Valentino is founded.”
Garavani was born in Voghera, a small town outside of Milan, in 1932. He always had an interest in fashion, but he took his first official step into the industry at 17, when he ventured to Paris to attend both the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, Town & Country reported. After apprenticing at many a Parisian house in the ‘50s, Garavani stepped out on his own in 1959, when he opened his own brand in Rome. His designs quickly caught the eye of Elizabeth Taylor, who was one of the first A-listers to don his work. In 1960, Garavani and his partner Giancarlo Ciammetti opened Maison Valentino, and the rest, as they say, is history, as his couture designs and eye for elegant beauty quickly took the fashion world by storm.
Garavani also made Valentino’s famed bright-red hue synonymous with the brand; the shade made its first appearance in his Spring/Summer collection of 1959. From then on, red was a symbol of the house, one that was “a nonfading mark, a logo, an iconic element of the brand, a value,” he once said, according to The New York Times.
Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy were just a few stars who wore pieces sprung from Valentino’s mind. For the latter, the designer crafted the dress she wore to her then-husband John F. Kennedy’s funeral, as well as the dress she wore when she married Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Julia Roberts, meanwhile, accepted her Oscar for best actress in 2001 in a black-and-white gown from Garavani. Valentino became a popular name in the beauty realm, too, with its first fragrance debuting in 1979.
Garavani resigned from his post as creative director of Maison Valentino in 2008, after almost half a century at the helm.
“In Italy, there is the Pope—and there is Valentino,” Walter Veltroni, the then-mayor of Rome, said in a 2005 New Yorker profile of the designer.
Garavani will lie in state in Piazza Mignanelli for several days; then, his funeral will take place on Friday, January 23, at the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, in Piazza della Repubblica 8 in Rome, at 11 a.m.
The Italian designer is just the latest of the famed luxury designers to pass within the past year. Last September, prolific creative Giorgio Armani died at the age of 91. In addition to being a renowned businessman, he has been credited with transforming womenswear, with stars from Cate Blanchett to Julia Roberts sporting his silhouettes, as well as relaxing menswear, too. Both Armani and Garavani were among the last of a generation-defining era of fashion, one that changed the dynamic of the industry as we know it.
This story was first published on Robb Report USA. Featured photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
