Valentino

Valentino (born May 11, 1932, Voghera, Italy—died January 19, 2026, Rome, Italy) was an Italian fashion designer known for garments in his trademark “Valentino red” (rosso Valentino) and whose style was described as jet-set chic.

Childhood and early career

Valentino was born Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, though he primarily went by his first name throughout his career. He was the second child of Teresa Garavani and Mauro Garavani, and he had a sister, Wanda Garavani, who was born seven years earlier. Mauro Garavani was the director of an electrical supply company, and the family lived in relative affluence. As a child, Valentino was interested in both fashion and art.

In 1949 Valentino left his home in Voghera, a small town between Turin and Milan, to study fashion sketching at Milan’s Santa Maria Institute. He also enrolled in a French course, which proved useful when in 1949 he moved to Paris to attend the École des Beaux-Arts and to study fashion at a school run by the Chambre Syndicale, the French fashion governing body. At that time the Paris fashion scene was a hostile environment for foreigners, particularly Italians. But Valentino won a competition for fashion design run by the International Wool Secretariat (the same prize that Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld won in subsequent years), and his prize led to a job at the French couture house of Jean Dessès. In 1957 Guy Laroche, an illustrator at Dessès, decided to set up his own fashion house, and Valentino worked with him for two years.

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Fashion empire

In 1959 Valentino returned to Rome and, with the financial backing of his father, presented his first collection in his own salon on Via Condotti. That same year Valentino designed a strapless cocktail dress in a red hue that mixed carmine with scarlet and had a hint of orange. It was reportedly inspired by a woman who Valentino had seen at the Barcelona opera wearing red. He called it the “Feista” dress and went on to include at least one red dress in each of his collections. Elizabeth Taylor, who was in Rome shooting Cleopatra at the time, spotted Valentino’s work and placed her order for a white column dress, which she wore for the world premiere of Spartacus. Valentino’s fate was sealed.

In 1960 Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti, an architecture student, who became his partner in charge of the commercial side of the business. The pair also had a romantic relationship for about a dozen years and remained close after it ended. Valentino debuted his first couture fashion line in 1962 at the Pitti Palace in Florence and began to establish an international reputation. Well-known personalities soon sought him out for designs, including Belgian Queen Paola, Princess Margaret of England, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Kennedy. Valentino designed many dresses for Kennedy, including the dress she wore to her husband’s funeral in 1963 and then, in 1968, a dress for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis.

Though Valentino’s trademark color was red, it was a 1967 collection entirely of white, ivory, and beige clothes—his “no color” collection—that thrust him into the fashion spotlight and for which he was awarded the Neiman Marcus Award. That collection stood in stark contrast to the bold psychedelic patterns of the time. With the “no color” collection he also launched his trademark V logo. In 1969 he opened his first ready-to-wear shop in Milan. He opened stores in New York City and Rome the following year. The designer went on to enjoy an extremely successful and illustrious career, serving high society and the entertainment world. His clientele grew to include Farah Pahlavi, empress of Iran; Vogue editor Diana Vreeland; and Diana, princess of Wales. Valentino also dressed a number of actresses for the red carpet, including Julia Roberts in a vintage 1992 black-and-white gown in 2001 when she won for best actress for Erin Brockovich (2000) and Cate Blanchett in a one-shoulder yellow dress with a burgundy belt in 2005 when she won for best supporting actress for The Aviator (2004).

In 1998 Valentino and Giammetti sold the company to the Italian conglomerate HdP for some $300 million, though Valentino remained the designer. In 2006 he received the French Legion of Honour medal, and two years later he was the subject of the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor. Valentino retired in 2008, and the Italian designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli were subsequently appointed as the fashion house’s creative directors (Chiuri departed for Dior in 2016 and Piccioli exited in 2024. That year Italian designer Alessandro Michele became the creative director).

Later life

Valentino spent his retirement designing gowns for select clients and for the opera, including the 2016 staging of La Traviata, directed by Sofia Coppola, at the opera in Rome. He died at age 93 in his home in Rome in 2026. Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, paid tribute to him in a social media post, saying Valentino was an “undisputed master of style and elegance and eternal symbol of Italian high fashion.”