## The Red Room

The Red Room

Valentino Garavani once said he didn't invent red. He simply made it his own. That was in 1962, when he opened his first atelier on Via Condotti in Rome. The shade—a bright, unapologetic vermillion that sat somewhere between arterial and theatrical—appeared on a coat. Then a dress. Then everything. Within five years, Vogue was calling it Valentino Red, and the name stuck.

He didn't work alone. Giancarlo Giammetti, his business partner and romantic companion for decades, handled the money, the contracts, the expansion. Valentino handled the cloth. That division of labour—creative purity on one side, commercial pragmatism on the other—became the template for nearly every luxury house that followed. But in 1960, when the two met at the Café de Paris, neither had a plan. Giammetti was nineteen, studying architecture. Valentino was twenty-eight, recently returned from Paris, where he'd spent the previous decade apprenticing under Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche.

Paris taught him construction. Rome taught him spectacle.

The Apprenticeship

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani was born in Voghera, a small city in Lombardy, in 1932. His mother sewed. His father sold grain. At seventeen, he enrolled at the Accademia dell'Arte in Milan, then decamped to Paris a year later to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. The curriculum was traditional: draping, pattern-making, the mechanics of a sleeve. He worked for Dessès first, a Greek couturier known for draped evening gowns in chiffon and silk jersey. The training was rigorous. Valentino learned how to cut on the bias, how to let fabric move without fighting the body.

After Dessès, he moved to Guy Laroche, where the work was sharper, more structured. He stayed two years. By 1959, he was ready to leave Paris. Not because he disliked it, but because he'd absorbed what he needed. He returned to Rome with a small inheritance from his father and a conviction that Italian couture could rival the French.

The Atelier

The first collection debuted in 1962 at the Pitti Palace in Florence. The press was polite. The buyers were cautious. Valentino showed sixty looks, most of them in black and white, a few in that new red. The silhouette was clean—narrow shoulders, nipped waists, skirts that skimmed the knee. The references were clear: Balenciaga's discipline, Dior's volume, but lighter, less architectural. Italian couture at the time meant embroidery and embellishment. Valentino offered restraint.

Giammetti, meanwhile, was learning how to run a business. He had no formal training, but he understood leverage. He negotiated with fabric mills in Como, secured financing from Italian banks, and convinced American department stores to stock the line. By 1965, Valentino had opened a boutique in Rome and shown his first collection in Paris. By 1967, he'd dressed Jacqueline Kennedy for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis. The gown was ivory, long-sleeved, with a pleated skirt. It was photographed on a yacht off Skorpios and appeared in every major newspaper. Valentino became, overnight, the couturier of choice for women who wanted to be seen but not scrutinised.

The Signature

The house developed a vocabulary quickly. Red, yes, but also lace, bow details, and a particular kind of evening dress that combined structure with softness. The bodices were fitted, often boned. The skirts were full but never stiff. The effect was romantic without being fussy. Valentino understood that his clients—actresses, socialites, the occasional royal—wanted to feel protected and admired in equal measure.

He also understood spectacle. The runway shows in the 1970s and 1980s were events. Models walked through the Sala Bianca in Florence, down the steps of the Spanish Steps in Rome, across temporary stages built in the gardens of the Villa Borghese. The clothes were opulent—beaded gowns, fur-trimmed coats, silk organza that caught the light—but the construction was always sound. A Valentino gown could survive a six-hour dinner, a flight to New York, and a turn on the dance floor without collapsing.

By the 1980s, the house employed over 1,000 people. There were ateliers in Rome, Paris, and Milan. There were boutiques in Tokyo, New York, and London. Valentino and Giammetti lived between a château in France, an apartment in Rome, and a villa in Gstaad. The business was worth hundreds of millions. In 1998, they sold it to HdP, an Italian conglomerate, for $300 million. Valentino stayed on as creative director. Giammetti stayed on as chairman. The arrangement lasted a decade.

The Departure

Valentino retired in 2008. The final show was held at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The collection was a retrospoire—seventy looks that spanned forty-six years. There were the early black-and-white coats, the red gowns, the lace dresses from the 1970s, the beaded eveningwear from the 1990s. The models included Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, and Eva Herzigová. The front row included Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, and Diane von Fürstenberg. At the end, Valentino walked the runway alone, in a dark suit, and waved. The applause lasted four minutes.

What he left behind was a house with a clear identity but no obvious successor. The company, by then owned by Permira, a private equity firm, cycled through creative directors. Alessandra Facchinetti lasted two years. Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, who'd worked in accessories under Valentino, were promoted to co-creative directors in 2008. They stayed together until 2016, when Chiuri left for Dior. Piccioli continued alone until 2024.

What Remains

The archive is vast. Over 10,000 pieces, stored in Rome, catalogued by decade and occasion. The red is still there, though it appears less frequently now. The lace is still there, though it's often subverted—cut into trousers, layered over knitwear, printed onto leather. The house still makes couture, though the clients have changed. Fewer socialites, more actresses. Fewer private commissions, more red-carpet loans.

In 2024, Alessandro Michele, formerly of Gucci, was appointed creative director. His first collection leaned into maximalism—printed silks, oversized bows, clashing patterns. The reviews were mixed. Some critics praised the energy. Others noted the absence of Valentino's restraint. Michele's challenge is the same one facing every designer who inherits a house with a strong founder: how to honour the past without embalming it.

Valentino himself, now in his nineties, lives in London. He no longer designs. He collects art, entertains occasionally, and avoids interviews. Giammetti, also in his eighties, lives in New York and Rome. The two remain close, though they no longer work together. The house they built continues, but it is no longer theirs. That is the nature of fashion. You create something, you sell it, and you watch it become someone else's.

What remains is the red, the lace, the idea that a dress can be both armour and invitation. That is enough.