Viva Valentino

A fashion god who has designed impeccable creations for socialites and celebrities ranging from Jackie O to Gwyneth Paltrow, Valentino celebrates his 45-year history and recent retirement with a documentary film, a museum retrospective and a lavish coffee table book. Here, the couture icon talks business and pleasure with James Servin while in the midst of a “fashion detox.”

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Valentino lives the life of an emperor. Telephoning from his 152-foot navy-hulled yacht moored off the island of Capri, the revered designer, whose eye for the perfect pleat, line and pouf won him the admiration of ladies like Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, whose black and white vintage dress Julia Roberts wore when she received the Oscar for Erin Brockovich and whose yellow silk taffeta gown conferred a sunny glow upon Cate Blanchett for her Aviator Academy Award win, reports that today he has enjoyed a leisurely lunch, followed by a workout that has included boxing with his trainer. “It seems a bit childish, but I like vacations,” he says, his deep, rich, Italian-accented voice transmitting a sense of contentment with his full life and brilliant career.

A young Valentino presides over his first studio in Paris.

Born in Voghera, Lombardy, Italy, Valentino Garavani apprenticed in Paris as a teenager with designers Jean Desses and Guy Laroche. In 1963, he met future business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, which freed him up to focus purely on design, leading to his international stardom and extraordinary longevity. With his last couture show presented in January, he is currently at work promoting the recently published coffee table book, Valentino Couture: Themes and Variations, and a documentary three years in the making, Valentino: The Last Emperor, before facing the serious business of enjoying his retirement. Part of moving forward means leaving the past behind; Valentino at first confessed to not being in the best mindset to talk fashion, but then soon found himself doing just that.

BLACKBOOK: Looking back, is it possible to choose a favorite moment or a perfect design? Do any highlights come to mind?
VALENTINO: I am in a period, right now, where fashion doesn’t interest me. I’m in a situation of detoxing from so many years of fashion. I guess I’ve tried to put it all out of my mind—the fashion, the clothes.

Can that be possible?
It’s not bad news. It’s good news for me.

Putting the finishing touches on a model wearing his signature red.

What’s a fashion detox like?
I focus on myself, on plans, on adventure. My life has been scheduled on a very tight calendar—always doing the same thing at the same time, year after year, always concentrating on the product that has to be sold. Now I’ll be able to plan my next month according to how I feel. That’s very much a part of this detoxing. It gives me a beautiful sense of freedom.

When you say you’re focusing on adventure, what kind of adventure do you mean?
Adventure for me is deciding at the last moment to take a plane and go somewhere far away. It’s just a call away—you pick your plane, pick your hotel, and go! And you don’t have to worry about being back in the office because there are 3,000 people waiting to see drawings. 

Have you visited any places on the spur of the moment like that?
When I stopped working in fashion in January, I already had a few projects in the works: one was a retrospective of my work at the Louvre, and the other is a documentary film that a director [Matt Tyrnauer] has worked on for years. It’s about the lives of me and my partner Giancarlo Giammetti, and it’s about my work. We gave the director complete artistic freedom. The film will be introduced at the Venice Film Festival in September. 

You’re still working, but looking forward to time off.
Exactly. It’s already about different work, and completely different people around me. I’m not with fashion people. I’m with movie people, with museum curators. 

Dancing the night away with friend and favorite customer Elizabeth Taylor.

Since a detox can bring on flashbacks, and since your book Valentino Couture: Themes and Variations celebrates your life and career, I’ll ask a couple of fashion-related questions. I hope you don’t mind.
Not at all. I’m not putting all my past in the garbage. My past is there and I respect it and I love it, and I think a lot about it. It’s just that my future is different.

What was the best thank-you note you’ve received from one of the many famous women you’ve designed for?
I have a very respectful relationship with my customer friends, from whom I’ve received a lot of beautiful notes. I once forgot a pair of sunglasses in Mrs. Kennedy’s house in Newport, and she sent back the glasses, along with a glass box. Inside the box, she’d glued a note she’d written, along with a collage of shells and sand on the bottom. It showed me she took time to do something more than just write a note. Julia Roberts, after I dressed her for the Academy Awards when she won for Erin Brockovich, wrote that it was her five-year-old niece who chose the dress. When she walked into the room to show her family which dress she wanted to wear, her niece started to scream that she should wear this black and white dress of mine. Those are the things I remember. 

Valentino red is a very specific shade. What’s the magic of that color, and who wears it best?
That tone of red, which is with just a bit of orange, is a beautiful color for any woman. I believe it gives courage to the woman who wears it because it is so strong. If I am remembered by my color, it’s very flattering that there is a Valentino red now in every book. It is not the only color which suits a woman, but I guess it is one of the most passionate and striking colors.

Do women wear it better than men?
Yeah, it’s like a lot of things that you see on the runway for men that you never see in life.  It’s ridiculous on men, while a red dress is always a beautiful thing for a woman.

Is there a younger designer who’s exciting you, whom you can see your work influencing?
I had such a huge, long career, probably the longest of all of them. So definitely, I can see some idea that I did in some way, reworked in a modern way, today’s way, a younger way. But I cannot really point out new designers as far as being inspired by me or not. I think a lot of young, talented designers work in a very different structure than what I’m used to. Today, unfortunately, fashion is not dominated by creation. It’s run by numbers, by people who look at the bottom line. So even the great talent we have today, unfortunately, cannot completely express themselves because they have to look at numbers all the time. For most of my life, I was alone in a room with my piece of paper, with my drawing book, with my pencil, and I would design while somebody else took on those other responsibilities. Today, designers have to handle so many other facets of creation. And so probably they are never going to be free the way me and my partner were, the way Yves Saint Laurent was and probably Lagerfeld has been, to do whatever we wanted to do.

What mistake have you learned the most from?
In fashion, or in my life?

Either.
I think I’ve been very lucky, because, professionally speaking, I cannot say there really was a moment in which I was unhappy. Of course, I go through moments of happiness and unhappiness like every human being. But in my work, in the 1960s when I was discovered, when Valentino made it, we became not just a modern Italian designer but an international designer. The 1970s were all about the freedom, the fun. I discovered a different culture, I started to move. I began to see a lot of people in New York, and I began to love the modern art. In the 1980s, we enjoyed growing enormously. Maybe the 1990s was the only moment, the only decade, where fashion became too intellectual for my taste. I did not recognize myself so much in that decade. From 2000 on, everything in the business became about finance. I’m happy that I stopped at the right moment.

A still from Valentino’s final collection.

Any favorite memories from spending time with Andy Warhol and Diana Vreeland in the 1970s?
Diana was such a friend. I remember when we arrived to stay in New York, there was a message from her to join her at seven o’clock in her apartment. We arrived and she took us to see Hair, the musical. She was 55 or 60 at the time, and she told us that she was backstage every night! It really was a shocking experience at the time to see this kind of musical. Diana really loved fashion and loved people without dominating them. She was an example of the perfect editor, the perfect elegant woman. Andy was something that you discovered later on. You discovered his genius later, when you look at his career, and how he influenced the future. At the time, he was just an eccentric guy with a microphone under your mouth when you had dinner or lunch with him. He spent a lot of time in Rome, so we had time to get together. Andy was a mystery, and his genius has been discovered much later.

Strolling the runway during a rehearsal for his final show in January 2008.

You have homes around the world—in Capri, Gstaad, London, Rome, New York and Paris—and a yacht. What are your favorite vacation spots? 
When I go skiing in Switzerland, in Gstaad, and when I’m on this boat, I can be myself. I don’t have to dress up. It’s just friends, people who love me, and people who I love around me. No fashion people, no fashion conversations. These are the best moments. 

What item do you travel with that makes any journey more luxurious and comfortable?
Framed pictures of my parents. 

How would you describe your personal style?
A tailor called Caraceni in Rome has made my clothes for most of my life.  I like to be dressed properly for the occasion, but I don’t dress for fashion. I grew up being taught that respect for others is very important. I never try to shock anybody with my behavior or my clothes. In spring and summer, I like light pants with grey, brown or navy jackets. In the fall, I like cashmere sweaters, cashmere ties, leather, double-breasted suits. I’m super-classic.