This monumental Valentino book is a true Italian fashion epic

There are few names more synonymous with Italian style than Valentino Garavani, a towering figure of Roman haute couture whose vision of La Dolce Vita – much of it in his signature red hue, ‘Valentino Rosso’ – spawned an international fashion empire that continues today.

‘Touching his creations, I realise that he was very aware of the preciousness of life,’ Alessandro Michele, current Valentino creative director, said of Mr Garavani after his debut at the house in 2024. ‘He made clothes for friends and acquaintances and people belonging to his sentimental world. I don’t think he was working, I think he was simply living.’

‘Valentino: A Grand Italian Epic’ (published by Taschen)

An expansive new tome, published by Taschen, is testament to this approach – one embedded in the traditions of Italian life, and immortalised by a slew of Mr Garavani’s friends and muses, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren. Spread over 576 richly illustrated pages, the book – authored by Matt Tyrnauer, director of Valentino: The Last Emperor – is titled ‘Valentino. A Grand Italian Epic’, with contributions from a raft of high-profile names, from Gwyneth Paltrow to Tom Ford.

Laid out in traditional chronological style, the book charts Mr Garavani’s career in fashion – from the opening of his mononymous fashion house in Rome in 1959, following stints at Balenciaga and Guy Laroche, to his retirement in 2007. In between, a wealth of archival material, including sketches, fashion editorials, oral histories and news reports which capture the glamorous world he both built and inhabited: a bevvy of models in billowing Valentino Rosso gowns (and his beloved pugs) surround a blindfolded Mr Garavani on a sun-soaked lawn; other images capture him with movie stars or disembarking private jets, a vision of seductive Cinecittà glamour.

‘The designer’s mantra is: “I always wanted to make women beautiful,” and his inspiration was that of a provincial boy in the drab post-war period going to the movies with his sister and catching the glory days of Hollywood stars in their silver-screen years,’ writes British journalist Suzy Menkes in the book’s foreword. ‘Like the rest of the Romans, he was fascinated by the shiny, Dolce Vita glamour and he gave it classical class . By the time he was touched with the stardust of his own era, dressing the famous who were also his friends, Valentino had become part of the motion picture.’

‘I think I have succeeded because through all these decades I was always concerned about making beautiful clothes,’ says Mr Garavani in the book. ‘Let’s forget fashion. It goes in other direction sometimes: the grunge look, the messy look. I don’t care; I really don’t care. I cannot see women destroyed.’

The book’s release coincides with the opening of the Fondazione Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, a new institution in Rome led by Mr Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, his longtime partner in life and work. ‘It’s emotional,’ Giammetti told Wallpaper* at the opening of its first exhibition, focused on the Valentino red which defined Mr Garavani’s oeuvre. ‘You don’t realise what you’ve built until you take a step back. Curating this exhibition has been a way to look at our past, not with nostalgia, but as inspiration for what comes next.’

‘Valentino. A Grand Italian Epic’, published by Taschen, is available now from waterstones.com and barnesandnoble.com