VALENTINO: THE ROMANTIC KNIGHT OF ELEGANT STYLE

Lubomir Stoykov

Valentino Garavani was born at May 11th 1932 and his birthplace is Voghera, Italy. At first he graduates at the Academy of fine arts in Milan, later the School of Syndicate of representatives of the high fashion in Paris. He starts his professional career with the famous French designer Jean Desses, to whom Valentino assists from 1950 to 1955. He works for another French fashion ace – Guy Laroche from 1956 to 1958. From them he obtains the leaven of the charming French high fashion and Valentino makes a cult of the refined elegance, the luxury and the moderate extravagance, decorated with a drop of provocatively and scandalously. After he changes some more employers, Valentino founds his own fashion house and he presents his first collection in 1960. Since this early moment near Valentino stands his business partner Giancarlo Giametti, who was studying before architecture. Both they are wonderful and long-lived tandem. Thanks to them the company grows up beyond the borders of the country. Due to them is founded the Academy for fashion in Rome and the large charity activity in particular dedicate to the pest of the century – the disease AIDS. Two years later the name of the designer causes a sensation especially after the premiere of his collection in Florence. His success and his lightning career, like the breaks in world fashion of other famous designers like Cerutti, Armani and Versace, are due to his orientation towards cinema actresses and especially towards the stars of Hollywood. Like Terry Edgins says in his book “The end of fashion”: “In 1960 when Italian high fashion was concentrated in Rome, Valentino Garavani, known just as Valentino, became favourite person of the English high society. Besides he was talented modeler, the dark handsome with heavy eyelids Valentino, appeared like the most famous fashion bonvivant – personification of “dolce vita” (sweet life – Italian). Valentino loved to have fun at his yachts and palaces ornate decorated, entoured by the Hollywood legends Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins who were among his favourite clients”.

There are any encyclopaedias and dictionaries about fashion in which the year 1967 isn’t marked like the most important year in the creative work of Valentino, including the formation of the famous “White collection” and the launching of his trade mark “V”. From 1968 till 1973 the company, created by Valentino, was property of “Canton Corporation”, but from 1973 the company is again possession of the designer. He enlarges his activity in the furniture, interior, set-scene and textile design sphere. In 1972 he launches his man’s collection and between 1968 and 1988 Valentino opens his boutiques in Paris, Rome, Milan, London etc. At this period he starts to launch the special emissions of his perfumes and aromatic liquids. From 1998 “Partecipazioni Industriali” becomes owner of the empire “Valentino” and in 2002 the brand is already possession of the concern “Marzzotto” who also owns “Gianfranco Ferre Studio”, “Hugo Boss”, “Missoni”, “Marlboro Classics” etc.

SATISFIED AND SPOILED KID
How the circumstances, that in the childhood Valentino didn’t suffer privation, but lived in luxury, reflect on his personal culture? And what is his opinion about the richness and the rich people to whom he belongs? His parents possessed a company for electric appliances in North Italy. They have satisfied every caprice of young Valentino who don’t hide that he is really spoiled by his life and his family. Later, seventeen years old, he is in Paris, but his parents continue to send him a great amount of money because they don’t want Valentino to be short of money. In the city of Seine the future emperor of fashion doesn’t waste his time with stupid entertainment, but he is occupied with dancing and he visits many stagings. But don’t forget that the designer always liked luxury, richness and splendour – but not secretly like other millionaires, but he generously demonstrates his passion. His maxim: “Why I have to look poor, when I am rich!” is well known. His fashion is generous, luxurious and wasteful. His ambitions to be perfect with great material possibilities have taught him not to make economies when he is aspired to the perfection, to the best in the profession.

REFINED STYLE, DRAMATISM AND ROMANCE
Why the style of Valentino is magnetic and impressive? Why the elegant women like him so much and first class ladies like Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis don’t hesitate to confide in him before he becomes world famous designer?

One of the explanations is the poetry of his style. His style is so refined that it can be compared to the ancient Greek and ancient Roman sculptures. Usually in his works a note of dramatism can be observed which is due to his ability to attach great importance to the situation, to the event, to the personal role through clothes either to receptions, cocktails and balls or other special and official sphere. This dramatism should be unthinkable without his trade colour – red.

Valentino

Love, seduction, temptation and along with this passion and emotional imperativeness exhales from the wonderful dresses of Valentino. Their aesthetical influence intensifies as well as from the exceptionally expensive and perfect materials like crepe, chiffon, velvet, lace, taffeta, satin etc., as from the attention that he pays to the details and especially to the hand made embroidery. Many commentaries and analysis are written about Valentino, but most of the valuations about him don’t bypass his creative professionalism, the consistency and the highest quality of work. The precision of the line and the quality of the sewing and the material characterise to a great extent his design. The total comfort and the completeness of the shape are things that always help recognise his hand. These are the marks for the accessories, perfumes and little objects to decorate that are distributed by his fashion house. When Valentino works he changes so much that he becomes one with his sketches, drawings and strokes. He is overcome with the modern art, with the sense of shapes, dictated by the time. The inspiration can come from different sides. This is characteristic about Valentino and about many others stylists. Te artist tells the story of his work with the pencil about taking the shape: “It comes into the world in a magic moment from some memory, from some book, from some painting, sometimes even under the influence of something bad. It transforms into an emotion and then in a cloth…. Or in а perfume…Or in a finery”.

His element is woman fashion. Valentino proved his abilities to create modern man clothing, sometimes even with advanced-guard nuances or extravagant components. Short or long, with luxurious applications or without them, with uncovered or with covered shoulders – the dresses with trade mark “Valentino” are a demonstration of secret eroticism, femininity and harmony. Valentino founded “the plural proportion”: dressings that make beautiful their owners, reinforce their self-confidence, but also underline the most beautiful in them. Valentino makes this in one way discreet and unostentatious. The tendency to refined romance is evident by the fragments. Valentino shows his preference to the enormous butterfly-neckties and colourful applications that attain significance to artistic accents in his models. Difficult draperies, skilful ornamentation and together with the advantages that gives materials like silk, chiffon, brocade sometimes combines in his works with simplified shapes and modest materials. In his art the whole richness of the Italian culture and painting reflects in very specific way, in which the echo of the Renaissance and the high achievements of the best artists of brush can never fade. It can’t be forgotten that Valentino acquired some skills from his great predecessor – the designer and artist Emilio Pucci. Today he is also unsurpassable virtuoso of the colours and the patterns in woman fashion. Valentino conquers the majesty and the femininity of his models, but together with this he is artist of the contrast and of the fines and delicate draperies and pleats. He is one of the biggest enemies of the careless and too casual fashion. From time to time Valentino criticizes severely in public the style of some famous women which is too free and negligee. One of them is Julia Roberts. Time will show if the maestro is too extreme and orthodox or he has the right to exact permanent elegance. It’s a fact that Valentino lives up to his comprehension of refinement, beauty and elegance in contrast to other famous artists like Armani, Versace, Ferre.

Valentino

WHAT IS ELEGANCE?
The fashion of Valentino answers perfectly to these people for whom the elegant cloth is cleaned masterly sculpted and at most specified dress like style and silhouette. Saturated with many romance, refinement and elegance, his models are loaded up at the same time with femininity and warmth. But what is the definition of elegance in Valentino’s opinion? Is it harmony, sense of measure or role model? In many interviews for different media he says: “The elegance is always the same, because in essence it is a question of harmony, of measure, of simplicity. And in the first place it is a question of attitude, of interior life and of intelligence. Of something that comes from inside and expresses at outward appearance”. In his ambition to give proof of his thesis that the elegance can’t be attributed from one side only to the quality of the cloth, Valentino involves key words like “instinct”, “sharp critical sense”, “modesty” and he arrives at a conclusion that the dress can’t give elegance to the woman, the dress can help her to feel beautiful and to prettify her, but this is something different. Valentino makes interesting distinction between “the elegance”, “the refinement” and “the charm”. For him the elegance comes from inside and expresses at outward appearance, the refinement is native quality, which can’t be learned, but can be developed, while the charm is mixture of intelligence, beauty, education and mentality of bright person.

Valentino

The designer has very strong criteria for the elegant woman and Valentino thinks that everything has to start from her own analysis – the self-appreciation of the personal type and the choice of the appropriate make-up, hair-style, step and line of appearance. After that she can think over and select the type of clothing that should be appropriate to her. For example for elegant women and good combination of elements of clothing Valentino proposes: “beautiful blouse from crepe de chine, skirt or trousers from sweater, bracelet and watch. Maybe I repeat myself, but I have old memories about wonderful women, dressed like this. Very beautiful women. Very elegant. Very refined. Only with such a simple clothing… And finally I recommend avoiding the unnecessary objects: the overload almost always borders on the horribly”. Valentino thinks highly of the beautiful and romantic cloth. Loose skirts with refined blouses, romantic and feminine dresses are favoured from him for the special occasions and in particular for the evening dressing. The skirt, the pretty blouse, the blazer etc. are the best choice for the woman. The maestro like to say that the elegant woman can appear everywhere with some pretty white blouse, skirt from grey sweater and little black jacket from wool.

HIS GREAT CLIENTS ARE BEAUTIFUL AND SEXY
The clients and the admirers of the designer are attractive and very impact women whose personal physical magnetism are complemented from artistic talent and perfectly mastered manners of the public attitude. Gloria Guinness and Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Sharon Stone, Ornela Mutti and Brooke Shields, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lopez and many others are in this special register. The names of dozens and even hundreds wives of sheikhs and petrol magnates, statesman and crowned persons can be added to them. What attract them to the art of this modern creator-emblem? What they think about him and how he addresses to them?

Valentino

His attitude to Jacqueline Kennedy is well known, who starts to dress herself with Valentino’s cloths an year after the assassination of her husband John Kennedy. The designer appreciates very much the fact that she prefers him when he is 32 years old, young and not so famous. But Jackie has the courage and starts to dress his toilets. They become friends and when the time of her wedding with Aristotel Onassis comes, not just anybody but Valentino creates the lace corsage and the loose accordion-pleated skirt for the wedding ceremony. It was Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis that named Valentino’s dresses “dreams, created by hand”. Hollywood star Sharon Stone is one of his sexiest clients and a favorite of the designer. Their relationship becomes especially strong and publicly famous when Valentino invites her to close his review with short wedding dress. It happens shortly after Sophia Loren “betrays” him and she prefers to dress herself in Armani’s cloths. The designer says for Sharon Stone: “She is very brilliant woman. Unique! She emanates femininity and at the same time manliness. She possesses some mystery. The brilliancy adds mystery to the woman”.

The appreciation of the famous clients for his talent passes by sensible culture opinions and arrived at the volcanic emotions and to the pathetic superlatives. The legislator of fashion Diana Vreeland says that the Valentino’s works are masterpieces, which most appropriate place are the world museums and Gloria Guinness is more spontaneous when she exclaims: “I don’t put on his dresses, I love them!”.

Valentino

REFINED AESTHETICS DURING THE NEW MILLENIUM
In most of his works Valentino demonstrates his philosophy for the elegance and the completeness of the line. This aesthetic appears especially clearly for example in his proposals autumn-winter 2001-2002. They are marked from the dominated creative codes, in which the refined sexuality and the piety to the fine refined silhouette are especially underlined. The designer operates skilfully with tweed and Scottish check, lace and different netlike materials, boucle and satin. The accent falls on the black taffeta and the black crepe at the evening clothes. These textiles are favoured in the special costumes that Valentino makes traditionally for the official ceremonies for the “Oscar” movie awards. The designer is torch-bearer at the championship in some areas of the haute couture. One of them is the evening chic. His works for the season autumn-winter 2002-2003, made from velvet and black lace, satin and brocade, are the undoubted standards in this respect. Sarah Mower, the fashion critic, notes then that the femininity in his design inspires “multigenerational respect”. Valentino’s collection spring-summer 2003 is also bright and full with luxurious chic. Some of the models were inspired by the exotic Indian movie stars. Woollen crepe, refined embroideries, printed silk in intensive tones impregnated his messages with a great amount of passion, excitement and vitality. As a whole the Indian cultures and in particular the ritual holidays marked the collection of the stylist, who has changed into emblem of world elegance.

Valentino shows in his haute couture collection autumn-winter 2003-2004 that he is more creative from anytime and that he is not afraid at all from the designers of the new generations. His concept about the autumn-winter’s lady is impregnated with enormous dose of elegance and well-grounded by the pretty and stylish clothes, made from satin, chiffon, lace and decorated with expensive leather mantle and discreet embroidery. Valentino inspires from Sandro Botticelli for the spring season 2004 collection haute couture and he stakes on short tailored jackets, skirts knee-high and for the day clothes materials like light gabardine, woollen crepe, tweed, and mixture of wool and silk. He proposes refined toilets from chiffon, silk taffeta, organza, muslin and lace for the evening fashion. Often the image of the famous Hollywood stars inspires the maestro when he creates his new works. When he projects his haute couture collection for the season autumn-winter 2004-2005 the basic inspiration comes from the bright of mega stars like Sophia Loren and Gwyneth Paltrow. Valentino comments his works for the media: “This is a collection for the important women, whose individual attraction is counterpoint of the richness of their wardrobe”. Fin embroideries, satin, crocodile leather, vison, mink and fox are the material basic of these messages for luxury, fantasy, femininity, sexuality and dreaming. Among the dominates tones are black, brown, orange, red and ash of roses and the decorations from ribbon, tulle and beads add the feeling for eternal elegance and subtlety of the style.

Valentino

Fashion house “Valentino” successfully manages with the marketing and financial tests, regardless of the dynamics and the market winding. The incomes of “Valentino” has risen with 21, 1% only for the first nine months of 2006, which means that they reached 91, 9 millions euro. It is due to the phenomenal collection for women cloths and accessories. The profits didn’t stop the gossip to retail the new of coming retirement of the designer from his activity. The rumours about the retirement of the great stylist was not commented neither from the announcer Antonio Favrin, neither from the fashion central nor from Valentino. The accents in his jubilee collection were weigh evening dresses, decorated with diamonds, beautiful embroideries, splendid toilets, decorated with plumes, tender applications and leather. This collection was the culmination of the three-day celebration of the 45th anniversary from the beginning of Valentino’s one-man creative activity. It was on July 2007. The colourful dominants were the pastel tones and also the typical for the designer red colour, together with black and white. The exciting party was held in a basilica of XII century near Vatican. Many world famous celebrities respected the jubilee of the emblematic Valentino. Among them showed up Carl Lagerfeld, Georgio Armani, Donatella Versace, Carolina Herrera, Tom Ford, Claudia Schiffer, Elizabeth Hurley and many others.

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Generalising the amazing creative achievements of “the Rolls Royce among the designers” – Valentino, it is good to realise that he is a creator of highest class in the spirit of the big tradition of the highest fashion designers of the second half of XX century. His contribution to the refinement of the form and the cleaning of the silhouette in the fashion design is incontestable. As a whole the style “Valentino” is focused at the most attractive from the Italian manner of clothing – the tenderness, the romance and the simplicity.

Valentino

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Notes:
In this feature is used this literature: Edgins, Т. The end of the fashion. W studio, S., 2000; Ermilova, D.U. История домов моды, “Академия”.Moscow, 2003; О`Hara, J. Fashion encyclopedia. “Library 48 “, S., 1995; Petrov, А. Only one stupid woman can look ugly, “Newspaper for the woman”, September 19th 1997;Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989; Feldman. E. Fashions of a decade. The 1990s. Facts On File. New York, 1997; Martin,R.The St.James Fashion Encyclopedia:A Survey of Style from 1945 to the Present.Visible Ink Press. Detroit,1997; McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000; Reuters Television News; O`Hara,G.The Encyclopaedia of Fashion.From 1840 to the 1980s.Thames and Hudson. London,1986; Stegemeyer, A. Who`s Who in Fashion. Third edition. Capital Cities Media, Inc. Fairchild Publications, New York, 1996; VOGUE.COM

Photos:
1. Valentino
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989
2. Valentino
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999. Cologne,2000.
3. Valentino’s model from 1964
Photo: © O`Hara,G.The Encyclopaedia of Fashion.From 1840 to the 1980s.Thames and Hudson. London,1986
4. Valentino’s tree models in the style maxi, midi and mini
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999 . Cologne, 2000.
5. Valentino’s evening assemble with skilful hand workmanship, spring-summer 1968
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999 . Cologne, 2000.
6. Valentino’s sketches
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999 . Cologne, 2000.
7. Valentino’s models, 1990
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989
8. Valentino in his villa in Toscana, 1989
Photo: © Lord Snowdon / McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000;
9. Valentino enjoys at his boat
Photo: © McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000;
10. Detail from Valentino’s model in romantic spirit – collection spring-summer 1969
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999 . Cologne, 2000.
11. Valentino’s classic evening dress, influenced from the geometrism of “R deco”, autumn-winter 1989-1990
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion, The century of the designers 1900 – 1999 . Cologne, 2000.
12. and 13. Models from Valentino’s collection, autumn-winter 1992-1993
Photo: © Vogue ( Great Britain) September 1992
14. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, spring-summer 2003
Photo: © AP Photo/Remy de La Mauviniere
15. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, autumn-winter 2003-2004
Photo: © AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere
16. Model pret-a-porter of Valentino, spring-summer 2004
Photo: © Marcio Madeira for VOGUE.COM
17. and 18. Models from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, autumn-winter 2004-2005
Photo: © AP Photo/Francois Mori
19. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, spring-summer 2005
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM
20. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, autumn-winter 2005-2006
Photo: © Doutzen Kroes at VIVA / Marcio Madeira for VOGUE.COM
21. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, spring-summer 2006
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM
22. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, autumn-winter 2006-2007
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM
23. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, spring-summer 2007
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM
24. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, autumn-winter 2007-2008
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM
25. Model from the Valentino’s high fashion collection, spring-summer 2008
Photo: © Marcio Madeira/ VOGUE.COM