Valentino, Italian haute couture ‘emperor’ who painted fashion red, dies at 93

ROME – A mix of carmine and scarlet, with a hint of orange – a new hue, inspired by an elderly woman at Barcelona’s opera house, whose elegance struck a young Valentino Garavani. 

The colour, introduced to the fashion world several years later, in 1959, with a strapless cocktail dress of draped tulle, has carried his name – “Valentino red” – ever since, doubling as the eponymous Italian fashion group's signature. 

“I think a woman dressed in red is always wonderful, she is the perfect image of a heroine,” Valentino wrote in the book Rosso (Red) released in 2022. He would include at least one red dress in every one of his collections.

Valentino, one of Italy’s leading fashion designers, died on Jan 19 at his Roman residence, his foundation announced. He was 93.

His death comes just months after the

passing of another Italian style legend, Giorgio Armani

, and there were tributes from the global fashion world and beyond.

“Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,” his foundation said in a statement.

A funeral is planned for Jan 23 in the Italian capital. Valentino’s body will lie in state at his company headquarters near the Spanish Steps on Jan 21 and 22.

Within minutes of the announcement, memories of the elegant and tanned designer began to flood social media.

Fellow Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace wrote on Instagram: “Today, we lost a true maestro who will forever be remembered for his art.”

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called Valentino the “undisputed master of style and elegance and eternal symbol of Italian high fashion”. “Today Italy loses a legend,” she wrote.

The cause of death was not immediately known.

‘I love beauty’

Valentino ranked alongside Armani and German designer Karl Lagerfeld as the last of a leading generation of designers, from an era before fashion became a highly commercial industry run as much by financiers and marketing executives as by couturiers.

Scaling the heights of high fashion, he was the first Italian to feature on the exclusive Paris haute couture catwalks.

Passionate about film, he dreamed as a young man of dressing the “beautiful ladies of the silver screen”, as he called them, among them 1950s Hollywood stars Lana Turner and Judy Garland.

Valentino would eventually design British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding gown, and was the first choice for numerous Oscar winners, including American actress Sharon Stone and Spanish actress Penelope Cruz.

His romantic designs, simple at first glance, were full of intricate detail. “I love beauty,” Valentino said. “It is not my fault. And I know what women want: They want to be beautiful.”

The designer, who also dressed former US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, created a business empire under his own name before selling it off ahead of his retirement in 2008.

'You need a lot of patience'

Valentino was an only child, born into a well-to-do family in Voghera, south of Milan, where his father ran an electrical supplies company. 

Having started drawing and appreciating high-end clothes from a young age, he studied couture in Milan and Paris, where he then worked as an apprentice for designer Jean Desses. He returned home in 1960, opening his own fashion house in the heart of Rome. 

That year, Taylor chose a white Valentino gown for the premiere of blockbuster Spartacus.

Valentino’s creative director Alessandro Michele celebrated him as a central figure in the history of Italian culture.

He said Valentino had “widened the boundaries of what is possible, crossing the world with a rare sensibility, a silent rigour and an unbounded love of beauty”.

Iconic London department store Harrods celebrated him in a statement as “one of the last true titans of fashion”.

Mr Luca de Meo, chief executive of luxury giant Kering, praised him as “an exceptional creator” who “embodied a sense of style that has profoundly shaped our collective imagination”.

In 1960, Valentino met Giancarlo Giammetti in a Roman cafe. Giammetti would go on to be his partner in business and in life.

“To share life with a person for your whole existence – every moment, joy, pain, enthusiasm, disappointment – is something that cannot be defined,” Valentino said of him.

Giammetti took on the managerial part of the business, leaving creative matters to the designer. 

“To be with Valentino as a friend, as a lover and as an employee is a bit the same: you need a lot of patience,” Giammetti said in Valentino: The Last Emperor, a 2008 documentary that followed the designer in the last two years of his career. 

Valentino’s georgette fabrics, chiffon ruffles and ornate embellishments, including the exclusive budellini technique – where long strips of sheep's wool are hand-rolled into tubes, wrapped in silk and stitched together – won him a multitude of awards, including France's highest civilian distinction in 2006.

“Fame and fortune didn’t change him,” Giammetti said at the time. “He is still the little guy I met 45 years ago.”

Superstitious and introverted, Valentino loved chocolate, skiing and his pugs. He told Italian daily Corriere in 2017 that he was afraid of death. 

‘The perfect moment to say adieu’

In 2007, he wowed Rome with lavish celebrations to celebrate his decades in fashion – a three-day event that included dinners, parties and exhibitions with thousands of guests flying in from around the world.

Months later, he announced that he would stop designing for his company, which he no longer controlled after selling it almost a decade earlier for some US$300 million. 

“I have decided that this is the perfect moment to say adieu to the world of fashion,” he said. “As the English say, I would like to leave the party when it is still full.”

His last catwalk show was held in January 2008 in Paris, a city he called his second home and which he said had taught him to love fashion and life.

The business that bears his name was bought by Qatari fund Mayhoola for €700 million in 2012. French luxury group Kering bought a 30 per cent stake in 2023, with a commitment to fully acquire the business from 2026, but then deferred the move to 2028 at the earliest.

Valentino and Giammetti remained active in supporting the arts. Their foundation opened the PM23 gallery in the centre of Rome in 2025, next to the Valentino headquarters. 

Fittingly, the opening exhibition – Horizons/Red – focused on the colour most closely associated with Valentino.

“Red isn’t just a colour,” Giammetti said at the time. “It’s a symbolic and aesthetic force of extraordinary power.” REUTERS, AFP