Fashion

Remembering Valentino Garavani, the Last Emperor of Couture

BYMille Team

January 20, 2026

In 1966, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, one of Valentino Garavani’s most devoted clients made a wish that felt half romantic, half prophetic: “Valentino, live a hundred years.”

He came close.

On January 19, the legendary designer Valentino Garavani passed away at the age of 93. Born Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani in Voghera, Italy, on May 11, 1932, his death was confirmed by the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti, which shared that he died peacefully at his home in Rome, surrounded by loved ones.

As the years passed, Valentino became one of the last living figures from couture’s most formidable generation. He outlived peers like Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, remaining a rare link to a time when fashion moved with ceremony and conviction. Trained in Paris and shaped by Italian craftsmanship, he represented an approach built on patience, discipline, and lifelong dedication. By the time the documentary The Last Emperor was released in 2008, the title felt less symbolic than factual, acknowledging a designer who had quietly outlasted the system he helped define.

From an early age, fashion was less a career choice than a fixation. Inspired by cinema, couture, and Italy’s deep-rooted craftsmanship, Valentino trained first in Milan before moving to Paris as a teenager. There, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, later sharpening his eye under Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche. By the time he returned to Italy, he wasn’t just skilled, he was certain.

That certainty materialized in 1960, when he opened his first couture house on Via Condotti in Rome. The timing was perfect. His elegant, hyper-feminine silhouettes quickly found favor with European royalty and Hollywood’s elite, including Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, and Jacqueline Kennedy, whose public appearances in Valentino helped introduce his refined silhouettes to the world.

But Valentino wasn’t operating alone. Alongside his lifelong partner in business and life, Giancarlo Giammetti, he built something far bigger than a couture salon. Together, they expanded the house into ready-to-wear, menswear, accessories, and fragrance, turning Valentino into a global fashion institution without sacrificing its DNA.

In 1998, the brand was sold for a reported $300 million to Italian conglomerate HdP, though Valentino remained creatively involved until his final haute couture show in 2008, a closing chapter to nearly five decades at the top of the fashion hierarchy.

Awards and honors followed, as they often do. But Valentino’s real legacy lives elsewhere. In the exact shade of red he made iconic, in the discipline of couture done properly, and in the idea that true elegance doesn’t chase relevance, but simply endures.

And that, more than any title, is how Valentino will be remembered.

Remembering Valentino Garavani, the Last Emperor of Couture

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Remembering Valentino Garavani, the Last Emperor of Couture

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