Valentino Garavani dies at the age of 93

Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani dies aged 93

His eponymous label is renowned for its opulent, elegant take on women’s fashion and has a legion of famous fans.

Valentino Garavani, the designer central to pioneering Italian glamour with his eponymous fashion house, has died aged 93.

On Monday, his foundation said in an Instagram post, “Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones. Valentino Garavani was not only a constant guide and inspiration for all of us, but a true source of light, creativity and vision”

On Wednesday and Thursday, the designer’s body will lie in state at the foundation’s headquarters in Rome, with his funeral due to take place in the Italian capital on Friday.

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, paid tribute, posting on X: “Valentino, undisputed master of style and elegance and eternal symbol of Italian high fashion. Today, Italy loses a legend, but his legacy will continue to inspire generations. Thank you for everything”.

Valentino was at the top of the fashion game for more than 45 years, retiring in 2007, after a final haute couture show where every model wore a red dress. During his career, he was on speed dial to an increasingly A-list coterie of women: models including Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer were often seen wearing his clothes off the catwalk, while film stars such as Julia Roberts, Laura Linney and Penélope Cruz wore his designs on the red carpet. Diana, Princess of Wales, wore his designs in the years after her divorce.

Arguably, glamour was there from the start. The designer was born in 1932, in Voghera, a town near Milan, and was named after the Italian actor Rudolph Valentino by his mother. Childhood experiences were formative to his future career. He later said his love of red came from a visit to the opera, watching Carmen. “All the women in the boxes were mostly dressed in red, and they leaned forward like geraniums on balconies, and the seats and drapes were red too … I realised that after black and white, there was no finer colour,” he said.

 

Valentino was an apprentice to the designers Jean Dessès, Christian Dior and Guy Laroche, moving to Paris as a young man. A year after he began his own label at 27, with financial backing from his family, he met Giancarlo Giammetti, who became his romantic partner and business partner, initially saving the business from bankruptcy. An all-white collection in 1962 brought him to the attention of the fashion world.

Known simply as Valentino, the designer was renowned for his opulent and elegant take on fashion that attracted famous fans. He founded his house in 1959 and could soon count Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor among his devotees.

He designed the clothes worn by Monica Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film La Notte in 1961, while Jackie Kennedy wore his clothes for several years in the 1960s. In 1966, she urged him to “live 100 years!” She went on to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968, wearing a Valentino wedding dress.

The red dress was Valentino’s signature item, part of his aesthetic from the very start. His first collection featured a red tulle dress called the Fiesta. The shade of red that he has used – halfway between crimson and poppy – is now so well known that it is officially recognised by the colour authority Pantone.