Valentino

His "V" logo is famous all over the world. Women such as Jacqueline Kennedy, Farah Diba and Elizabeth Taylor have worn his exquisite creations. Valentino Garavani was born in Voghera, north of Milan on May 11, 1932. While attending high school he shows a precocious artistic temperament and soon becomes interested in fashion. He takes courses in fashion design and studies French to prepare himself to move to Paris. He is 17 years old when he arrives in the then world capital of fashion and couture.After a few years' apprenticeship in the Fashion Houses of Jean Desses and Guy Laroche, Valentino returns to Rome at the beginning of the 60s to open his own atelier in Via Condotti. Those are the years of the Dolce Vita and many Hollywood stars who come throgh Rome discover Valentino and determine his quick fame.

Valentino's international debut takes place in 1962 in Florence, the Italian fashion capital of the time. His first show at the Pitti Palace is welcomed as a true revelation and the young couturier is submerged by orders from foreign buyers and enthusiastic comments on the press.

At the end of the 1960s Valentino meets Giancarlo Giammetti, an architecture student who abandons the university to become his business partner. Giammetti's entrepreneurial genius will prove fundamental to the worldwide expansion and success of the House.

Valentino's White Collection in 1967 in which the winning "V" first appears, and turns him into an unsurpassed king of fashion. The lace mini-dress he designed for Jacqueline Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle Onassis made the covers of magazines around the world. By 1972 he has already launched his women's and men's ready-to-wear collections and has opened his first boutiques in Rome and Milan. Oliver (for his beloved dog) is the name he gives to his younger line. In the years to come Valentino extends the range of products bearing his signature by turning his ideas and designs to various sectors of attire (neckties, shirts, accessories, jeans) and interior decoration (textiles, tiles, furniture, wallpaper). In 1978 he launches his own perfume during a gala in Paris, where guest star Mikhail Baryshnikov dances Tchaikowski's La Dame de Pique at the Theatre des Champs Elysees.

Valentino's expansion continues with a chain of boutiques in the USA and Japan. 1989 marks the opening of the Academia Valentino, a cultural space located near his atelier in Rome, for the presentation of art exhbitions. The year later, encouraged by their friend Elizabeth Taylor, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti create L.I.F.E., anssociation for the support of AIDS related patients, which benefits from the activities of the Accademia Valentino.