Valentino Garavani, the Italian fashion designer whose name became synonymous with high glamour and whose creations dressed royalty, Hollywood stars and political elites for decades, died Monday at his home in Rome. He was 93.
His death was announced by the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti.
Garavani, widely known simply as Valentino, was among the last great couturiers of the 20th century. He built one of fashion’s most enduring luxury labels and cultivated an image of elegance that helped define Italian style in the postwar era. In a 2008 documentary, he was dubbed “the last emperor,” a title that reflected both his influence and his carefully constructed public persona.
He founded the Valentino fashion house in 1959 and spent the next half century dressing an international elite that included queens and princesses, first ladies, actresses and socialites. His work became instantly recognizable for its refined silhouettes and a distinctive shade known as “Valentino red.”
“In Italy, there is the Pope, and there is Valentino,” Walter Veltroni, then mayor of Rome, said in 2005.
Garavani was known as much for his disciplined devotion to beauty as for his lavish lifestyle. Deeply tanned, immaculately groomed and often surrounded by aides and his beloved pugs, he projected an image of old-world luxury at a time when fashion increasingly embraced disruption and experimentation.
“I always look for beauty,” he told broadcaster Charlie Rose in 2009. “Beauty.”
Among his most famous designs were the cream lace dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968, the black-and-white gown Julia Roberts wore to the Academy Awards in 2001, and the yellow silk taffeta dress Cate Blanchett wore when she won an Oscar in 2005. He also dressed Elizabeth Taylor, Farah Diba and Bernadette Chirac, among many others.
Together with his longtime business partner Giancarlo Giammetti, Garavani helped secure Italy’s place alongside Paris as a global fashion capital. The Valentino brand became a commercial powerhouse through licensing and was the first designer label to be listed on the Milan stock exchange.
Garavani retired from the runway in 2008, completing a rare smooth transition of creative control while preserving the prestige of his name.