By Maria Bregman
So, the Last Emperor has finally left the building.
Valentino Garavani passed away on Sunday. He was 93. And honestly? It feels like the lights just dimmed a little in Rome. Not the harsh, energy-saving LEDs of the modern fashion industry, but the warm, expensive glow of a crystal chandelier. The kind that probably costs more than your car.
It’s strange. We knew this was coming. He was in his nineties, after all. But there was something about Valentino – the perpetual tan, the armada of pugs, the hair that hadn’t moved a millimetre since 1970 – that made him feel permanent. He was less of a person and more of a monument. A Roman statue carved out of bronzer and impeccable tailoring.
I’ve been thinking about him all morning. Not just about the dresses – though we’ll get to the dresses – but about what he actually represented. Because Valentino wasn’t just a designer. He was the architect of a specific kind of life. A life where the champagne is always cold, the yacht is always waiting, and the dress is always, always red.
The Boy from Voghera
It’s easy to forget he wasn’t born on a throne. He was born in Voghera, a sleepy town in Lombardy. 1932. He started learning to sew from his aunt Rosa. It sounds like a fable, doesn’t it? The little boy with the needle.
But the part of the story I really love? The part that tells you everything you need to know about the man? It’s the failure.
He went to Paris at seventeen. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. He got a job with Jean Dessès. And then he got fired.
Why? Because he took a holiday to Saint-Tropez that lasted too long.
Think about that. He was a nobody. An apprentice. And yet, the lure of the sun, the sea, and the sheer pleasure of doing nothing was stronger than his fear of losing his job. Most people would call that irresponsible. I call it a manifesto. He was committed to the “Sweet Life” before he could even afford the ticket. He didn’t just want to dress the rich; he wanted to be them. Or at least, live like them.
The Shark and the Artist
He crawled back to Italy in 1959. He tried to set up on his own in Rome. And he nearly went bankrupt. Again.
See, this is the thing about fashion history. We glaze over the money troubles. We look at the gowns and assume it was effortless. It wasn’t. Valentino was a brilliant artist, but he was a terrible businessman. He was spending money he didn’t have on fabrics he couldn’t afford. He was building a palace on quicksand.
Then he met Giancarlo Giammetti.
If you take one thing away from the Valentino story, let it be this: without Giammetti, there is no Valentino. They met at a café on the Via Veneto. It sounds like a scene from a Fellini movie. Giammetti was an architecture student. He dropped everything to run Valentino’s business.
They were partners, lovers, friends, and enemies. They fought like cats in a sack. But Giammetti built the fortress that allowed Valentino to play the prince. He handled the money. He handled the licensing. He allowed Valentino to remain in a state of suspended creative animation, worrying about hemlines while Giammetti worried about the bank manager.
It’s a dynamic we don’t see much anymore. Now, designers are creative directors answering to a board of faceless shareholders. Back then? It was personal. It was two guys against the world, armed with nothing but ambition and a lot of red silk.
Rosso Valentino
Let’s talk about the red.
“Rosso Valentino.” It’s a brand now. A Pantone reference. But in 1962, when he debuted his collection at the Pitti Palace in Florence, it was a declaration of war.
Fashion in the early 60s was shifting. It was becoming geometric, mod, monochrome. Valentino looked at that and said, “No.” He went back to the opera. He went back to drama.
He claimed he fell in love with the colour after seeing a woman in the audience at the opera in Barcelona. She stood out like a flame. He realized that red wasn’t just a colour; it was an event.
“Red is the best colour,” he used to say. “It’s suitable for any woman, you just need to remember that there are over 30 different shades of red.”
That’s the detail. Thirty shades. Most of us see red. He saw geranium, crimson, blood, poppy, ruby. He understood that a dress wasn’t just a covering; it was a way to stop a room. When a woman walked in wearing Valentino Red, the conversation stopped. That was the point. He sold power.
Dressing the Icons
And the women bought it. God, did they buy it.
Jackie Kennedy. Elizabeth Taylor. Audrey Hepburn. He didn’t just dress them; he curated them.
When JFK was assassinated, Jackie O didn’t go to an American designer for her mourning wardrobe. She went to Valentino. Then, when she married Aristotle Onassis – a move that scandalized the world – she wore a Valentino mini-dress for the wedding.
He was there for the grief, and he was there for the reinvention.
I remember watching an interview with him years ago. He was talking about women with this old-school, slightly problematic reverence. He put them on pedestals. He wanted them to be beautiful birds of paradise. It’s a view of femininity that feels a bit dusty now, perhaps. We like our fashion a bit more challenged, a bit more intellectual. We like ugly sneakers and deconstructed hoodies.
Valentino hated that. He hated “grunge.” He hated the idea that a woman should look like she didn’t care. To him, effort was a form of manners. Being beautiful was a duty.
The Long Goodbye
He sold the company in 1998 for about $300 million. Smart. He knew the corporate raiders were coming, and he cashed out. But he stayed on as creative director until 2007.
That retirement party in Rome? It wasn’t a party. It was a coronation. Or maybe a funeral for an era.
Three days of festivities. Aerial acrobats. The Colosseum lit up. It was excessive, it was vulgar, and it was magnificent. It was the last gasp of a fashion industry that had money to burn and wasn’t afraid to show it.
I watched the documentary, Valentino: The Last Emperor. If you haven’t seen it, find it. It’s not a fashion film; it’s a tragedy about aging. You see him struggling with the changing world. You see him getting angry that the press are asking about finance instead of ruffles. You see a man who has built a golden cage and is terrified of what lies outside it.
But you also see the work. There’s a scene where he’s draping fabric on a model. His hands shake a little. He’s old. But the moment he touches the silk, the hands steady. He knows exactly where the pin needs to go. It’s muscle memory. It’s genius.
The Legacy of a Life Lived Loudly
So, what are we left with?
The brand lives on, of course. Pierpaolo Piccioli did a brilliant job of modernizing it, and now Alessandro Michele is taking a swing. But the spirit of Valentino – that specific mix of Roman arrogance and Parisian craft – died yesterday.
We live in an era of quiet luxury. Of beige cashmere and logos hidden inside the lining. Valentino was loud luxury. He was a tan that was three shades too dark. He was a yacht that was ten feet too long. He was a life lived in high definition.
He never married. He didn’t have children. His family was Giammetti, the staff, and the pugs. Always the pugs. They flew on the private jet. They had their own teeth brushed by butlers. It’s ridiculous. It’s hilarious.
But you know what? I miss it already.
I miss the idea that fashion can be a fantasy. We’re so grounded in reality now. We want clothes that are “functional.” We want “sustainability” (a noble goal, absolutely). But Valentino offered an escape hatch. He offered a world where the only thing that mattered was beauty.
It was a shallow world, maybe. A bubble. But it was a beautiful bubble.
He died in Rome, surrounded by the things he loved. The art, the furniture, the ghosts of the parties he threw in the seventies. He didn’t fade away in a hospital room; he went out as the Emperor.
Tonight, pour a glass of something expensive. Wear something red. And raise a toast to the last man who truly believed that a dress could save your life – or at least, make it look a hell of a lot better.
Ciao, Valentino. We won’t see your like again.
