The Tamesis
Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani died on January 19 in Rome, the birthplace of his eponymous brand, at the age of 93.
Garavani was born in Voghera, a small town south of Milan in northern Italy. As a young man he moved to Paris, where he continued to study fashion and worked for French designers Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche.
Garavani returned to Italy in 1959 and launched his own label in Rome at the age of 26; he quickly became known for his elegant, romantic gowns, worn by fashion icons such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Sophia Loren and Princess Diana, as well as Hollywood stars such as Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway and Gwyneth Paltrow. Garavani’s last fashion show was in 2007, and he retired in 2008. (Documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor Documenting the two years leading up to his final performance. )
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In 1960, shortly after returning to Rome, Garavani met Giancarlo Giammetti, who would become his romantic partner for a time and, perhaps most importantly, his long-term friend and business partner. Over the decades, both men have collected blue-chip art, some of which have attracted high-profile sales at auction.
Garavani sells his Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, El Gran Espectaculo (Nile)1983, sold at Christie’s in 2023 for just over $67 million. The piece has been in his private collection for 18 years and is estimated to be worth $45 million. Two years ago, in 2021, Giammetti sold his Basquiat; in this case (1983), sold for $93 million, nearly double its estimate.
According to 2010 vanity fair In an article about the renovation of Garavani’s New York apartment, he also owned and prominently displayed art by Richard Prince, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Fernand Léger. Garavani also reportedly sold art at a New York auction last November, including works by Warhol, Marilyn Minter and Neo Rauch.
When his first collection debuted at Rome’s new salon in Via Condotti, Garavani could not have known that more than sixty years later, he would open an exhibition space a few blocks away. Housed in a renovated 19th-century palace and named after its address, 23 Piazza Mignanelli, PM23 opened last spring and is run by the Valentino Garavani Foundation and Giancarlo Giammetti.
This cultural center is known to host exhibitions on fashion and contemporary art. The institution’s second exhibition, “Venus,” will feature a dozen artworks by Portuguese sculptor Joana Vasconcelos and 33 Valentino designs selected from his archives. The play opened on January 18, two days before Garavani’s death, and will remain on display until the end of May.
