There are designers, and then there are monarchs. With a reputation as “The Last Emperor” Valentino Garavani belonged firmly to the latter category — not merely because of the women he dressed, but because of the world he built around them. In an industry now obsessed with speed, disruption and relevance, Valentino stood immovably for something older, rarer and far more difficult to sustain: beauty as a discipline, glamour as a life philosophy, elegance as a form of power.
He did not chase fashion. He ruled over it. And today, with his passing at 93 years of age a reign defined by refinement, romance and restraint draws to a close.
Perpetually sun-kissed to a shade that suggested Mediterranean afternoons rather than winter offices, hair lacquered into unwavering perfection, Valentino moved through rooms like a man who had never doubted his place within them. His presence alone — immaculate suit, faintly theatrical air, entourage in tow — felt couture. And that was the point. Valentino didn’t simply design clothes; he authored an idea of how life itself should look.
“I love beauty. It’s not my fault,” he once said, a line that functions less as a quote and more as a manifesto. In Valentino’s universe, beauty was neither ironic nor intellectualised. It was visceral, immediate and unapologetic. He believed in dresses that announced themselves before their wearer spoke. And, in silhouettes that framed women as heroines rather than participants in trend cycles.
This philosophy found its most enduring expression in Valentino Red — that impossible, orange-tinged carmine inspired by a fleeting moment at the opera in Barcelona. Red, to Valentino, was not merely a colour but a declaration. “Red will be my lucky colour,” he decided early on, and history agreed. From that moment forward, at least one red gown punctuated every collection like a royal seal, unmistakable and final.
Valentino’s clients were women who understood spectacle instinctively: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her white lace wedding dress; Elizabeth Taylor in draped columns worthy of cinema mythology; Julia Roberts accepting her Oscar in a graphic black-and-white Valentino that still defines red carpet minimalism. They did not wear Valentino to blend in. They wore him to crystallise moments.
“I know what women want,” he famously said. “They want to be beautiful.” In a contemporary landscape wary of such statements, it reads almost radical. Not because it is naive, but because it refuses apology. Valentino never disguised his devotion to femininity under irony or edge. Bows, ruffles, lace, embroidery — all were wielded not as decoration, but as strategy. To dress beautifully, in his mind, was to command attention without asking permission.
What set Valentino apart was not simply the gowns, but the totality of his existence. Alongside longtime partner and business counterpart Giancarlo Giammetti, he lived as his clients did — drifting between Rome, Paris, London, New York and Gstaad; hosting dinners that bordered on operatic productions; collecting art, porcelain and palaces with equal devotion. Their lives were edited with the same precision as a couture fitting.
Yet, for all the grandeur, Valentino remained defiantly uninterested in the machinery that now dominates fashion. “I didn’t want to be part of a system that is not so much about designing but about managing,” he said when he stepped away. It was not retreat so much as refusal. He had already said everything he wanted to say — although he spoke it in silk, taffeta and lace.
In his later years, he appeared at shows like a benevolent emperor observing his legacy from the front row, beaming approval rather than nostalgia. He had outlived trends, critics and even the system that tried to absorb him. In doing so, he became timeless.
“I hope I will be remembered as a man who pursued beauty wherever he could,” Valentino once reflected. He will be remembered as far more than that. He will be remembered as fashion’s last true romantic — a man who understood that glamour, when practiced with conviction, is not frivolous at all, but formidable.
For Valentino Garavani, beauty was never an accessory. It was a crown.