PRODUCTION NOTES

VALENTINO The Last Emperor

Directed By Matt Tyrnauer

Release date: September 3, 2009 Running time: 96 minutes Rated: TBC

For more information contact Jillian Heggie at Hopscotch Films on: 02) 8303 3800 or email: [email protected]

Production Notes

Long Synopsis

Valentino: The Last Emperor, directed by Matt Tyrnauer, is a feature-length movie that takes the viewer inside the singular world of one of Italy’s most famous designers, Valentino Garavani. The film documents the colorful and dramatic closing act of Valentino’s celebrated career, tells the story of his extraordinary life, and explores the larger themes affecting the fashion business today. In production from June 2005 to July 2007, the filmmakers shot over 250 hours of footage with exclusive, unprecedented access to Valentino and his entourage.

“We were let in to the inner circle, but we had to stick it out for a long time, practically move in, to capture the truly great moments,” says Tyrnauer. “Valentino is surrounded by a tight-knit family of friends and employees, but, eventually, their guard came down and they forgot there was a camera crew in the room. The scope of Valentino’s wealth and the elaborateness of his global lifestyle put him on a level with emperors, kings, and queens. It is a world of villas, chateaux, yachts, fine art, and Meissen porcelain treasures.

Valentino: The Last Emperor looks at a majestic life from the inside, but the movie is not a simple story of shallow glamour. It is the saga of a family—though not a traditional one—and a meditation on the creative process. It’s also the story of a soon-to-be- forgotten lifestyle at the twilight of haute couture.

It is also, in the words of Valentino’s longtime business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, “not a story of money or fashion; it is a story of love.”

To know Valentino is also to know Giancarlo Giammetti, widely considered to be one of the most brilliant businessmen of his generation in Italy, and certainly one of the great business icons in the history of fashion. He and Valentino began as boyfriends in the early 1960s, and ended up as life business partners who, with great ambition and talent, have built a billion-dollar fashion business from the ground up.

Anchoring the film’s narrative is the arc of Valentino’s last two years at the helm of the fashion house he created. Still at the top of his game after 45 years, the designer began with only a dream. A little boy from a middle-class family growing up in a small town outside of Milan, early on Valentino recognized his calling: to dress the stars he saw in the Hollywood movies his sister brought him to see at the local cinema. His talent for fashion presented itself at an early age—as did his iron will. As a schoolboy, he demanded that his mother take him to the local weavers so that he could get his sweaters custom-made to his own designs.

3 At 17 he set out for Paris and worked as an apprentice alongside other ambitious would- be couturiers (Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, among them). Living in a garret apartment in Paris, he drew elaborate fantasy dresses (Lana Turner being his greatest inspiration), and then, one day, decided to strike out on his own. He was instantly recognized as a prodigy in the field of high fashion by certain ladies at the top of society. After a time in Paris, he took his talent to Rome (then a fashion capital equal to Paris) and began a journey unlike any other in the world of design. There were hundreds of names in high fashion in Rome at this time. Today there is only Valentino.

While following the creative process, and seeing Valentino bring a full couture collection to the Paris runway, the camera captures the extraordinary relationship of Valentino and Giammetti. With access to the private world of our two main characters, we see how they love each other deeply, but can also fight with equal passion—in three languages: Italian, French and English.

Not only have the two men altered the world of fashion, they have also redefined the idea of family, building an elaborate court of many loyal friends and workers, who help them run their global operation, carefully plotting which Oscar-nominated actress will wear which Valentino dress for the red carpet. The camera sees the inner workings of this amazing nomadic family, which moves around together from the places where Valentino and Giammetti maintain homes: Rome, Paris, London, Gstaad, Tuscany, and New York. In summer, they sail the Mediterranean aboard Valentino’s 152-foot yacht, the TM Blue One.

The film opens backstage in February 2007 at Valentino’s spring prêt-a-porter show, when media speculation about Valentino’s retirement, his possible successors, and the future leadership of the company is reaching a crescendo. Rumors are swirling and emotions running high among his longtime staff—their futures are just as uncertain as Valentino’s.

We flash back a year earlier and join Valentino in his studio designing the elaborate couture dresses that made him famous, and his dozens of seamstresses—many of whom have worked for him for 35 years or more—bringing his visions to life in the Rome headquarters’ three ateliers. There are many dramatic moments as everyone rushes to complete the collection in time for the Paris show.

During this first act we meet Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino’s business partner and companion of 50 years. The Valentino-Giammetti relationship is a remarkable story, and the camera is there to capture the good days and the bad, the tender moments and the quarrels, in this extraordinary relationship. The two perfectly complement one another. Valentino brings the creative vision, but, in his own words, is “a disaster in everything else.” Giammetti brings the business acumen and is credited with building the Valentino brand and empire. While Valentino focused on his art, Giammetti was busy inventing the modern fashion business, paving the way for global ad campaigns, branding, and licensing, which forever changed the industry.

4 Forty-five years, and many millions of dollars later, Valentino hasn’t forgotten Giammetti’s role in his life and career. After accepting France’s Legion of Honor for contributions to the arts and culture, Valentino offers up a rare, tearful tribute to his lifelong partner “who stayed by my side all these years.” Matteo Marzotto, chairman of the Valentino Fashion Group, whose family bought a controlling share of the company in 2002, puts it this way: “I don’t think Valentino would have been the same without Giancarlo. Not even half and not even one-third of it. ... How long is this relationship? 365 days a year, 24 hours, for 50 years. I mean, this is unique. And you cannot even say it’s for the money, for the power, for the what?”

Members of café society and the beau monde who orbit Valentino’s world move in and out of the narrative of the film. Celebrities, royals, and high-society figures converge at an elaborate summer party Valentino throws at his 17th century Château Wideville, outside of Paris. In the manner of Gosford Park, we witness the event from parallel perspectives. “Downstairs,” the elaborate preparations of the multitudes of chefs, butlers, waiters and valets. “Upstairs,” the crowd mingles in opulent rooms, royals rubbing shoulders with Hollywood and the fashion world, butlers ducking to get out of the way. It’s a fantastic circus and a collision of worlds—Hollywood, European aristocracy, potentates of the east, wives of heads of state, nouveau riche and Eurotrash. The music of Nino Rota is elegantly, and at times ironically, woven through the film’s soundtrack.

From the start of the movie, Valentino’s future hangs in the balance. “My future—I don’t really know what’s going on. I am a little confused. I live day by day,” he says at one juncture. Giancarlo acknowledges it’s not an easy time: “You have to choose between going on until the end of your life or until somebody tells you, ‘We need somebody else now.’ Or you decide to go—it’s a difficult step.”

Looming on the horizon is an uncomfortable inevitability: There may be precious little room left for Valentino—who showed his clients how to live by example—in today’s bottom-line-driven fashion industry, where corporate mergers proliferate and branding is king. “The market is asking us to make different things,” Matteo Marzotto says. “So we have to change. This is the job, to change, to have new ideas.” In May 2007, the Marzotto family started selling its controlling stake in the company to private equity firm Permira, but Matteo stayed on as the company’s chairman. Matteo says, “I’m not sure Valentino really wants to change his own lifestyle after so many years.” But Valentino is defiant: “After so many decades, after so much work, after so much freedom, can you imagine me accepting [them] telling me, ‘You can’t do this. You can’t do that?’ I would eat them!”

Even with their future so uncertain, Giammetti had a characteristically grand idea: Why not throw the biggest fashion event ever to mark Valentino’s achievements and secure his place in the fashion firmament? In June 2007, Valentino and Giammetti announced plans for an extravagant three day long event in Rome celebrating their 45th anniversary in fashion. The third act of the film follows them as they design and plan the festivities, including Valentino’s summer couture collection (to be shown in Rome for the first time in over 30 years), a retrospective of the designer’s work at the Ara Pacis Museum, a black-tie ball at the Villa Borghese, and an over-the-top gala bash at the Temple of Venus

5 overlooking the Coliseum, complete with fireworks and flying models. (Some estimates put the cost of the celebration at more than $20 million.) Many observers speculated the 45th anniversary would be Valentino and Giancarlo’s swan song, and the camera catches much emotion, and quite a few surprises, along the way.

Meanwhile, in the background, Permira completes its takeover of the company. “The world of fashion today is very, very different,” says Giancarlo. “If there is a reason for Valentino to stop one day, that’s the reason, that it’s not a world made for him.” In early September 2007, two months after the 45th anniversary celebration, Valentino announced his retirement.

“Valentino is the last of the great couturiers to still have had his name on his company and to be in creative control. He is also a design genius and an Italian original—a sort of national treasure, the Verdi of high fashion,” says Tyrnauer. “He lived la dolce vita to the hilt, long after the real era ended, and now, finally, with his retirement, comes the end of an era, the closing of a colorful chapter in the history of Rome and global fashion.”

Valentino: The Last Emperor is much more than a fashion movie. It is a portrait of an extraordinary partnership, the longest running in fashion, and a dramatic story about a master confronting the final act of his celebrated career.

Short Synopsis

Produced and directed by Matt Tyrnauer, Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Valentino: The Last Emperor provides a first-time glimpse into Valentino’s world of bygone glamour. Filmed from June 2005 to July 2007, the crew shot over 250 hours of footage with exclusive, unprecedented access to Valentino and his entourage. The resulting non-fiction film is a portrait of an extraordinary partnership, the longest running in fashion, and a dramatic story about a master confronting the final act of his celebrated career.

Brief Summary

Matt Tyrnauer’s Valentino: The Last Emperor, is an intimate and engaging fly-on-the- wall exploration of the singular world of one of Italy's most famous men. It is a portrait of an extraordinary partnership, the longest running in fashion, and a dramatic story about a master confronting the final act of his celebrated career.

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Directorʼs Statement

“I approached the story of Valentino from a journalistic standpoint, but soon after we began shooting, I discovered that direct cinema (the filmmaking style pioneered by the great Maysles brothers) would be much more powerful than any of the traditional "information seeking" practices a journalist usually employs. Valentino as a man, and a character, is bigger than life. When we rolled the dailies, we immediately saw that Valentino is a born movie star. He has a very engaging cinematic presence, yet he is unselfconscious of his actions. He plays himself 24/7, and he does a masterful job.

The story of this movie unfolds in the scenes between Valentino and his longtime business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, an inseparable pair that together redefined the business of fashion, and, as I think becomes clear in the film, created a new definition of human partnership by becoming closer than any spouses could ever be. They are a part of the same person, or so it has seemed to many observers who know them much better than I.

The film was in production from June 2005 to July 2007, and we shot over 250 hours of footage with unprecedented access to Valentino and his extended family. When we screened all the raw footage before starting to edit, we were pleased to find we had more than a fashion movie on our hands. The result, I hope, is an engaging and entertaining portrait of an extraordinary partnership, the longest running in fashion, and a dramatic story about a master confronting the final act of his celebrated career. The movie, in certain ways—thanks almost entirely to its stars—plays more like a feature film than a documentary. What started as a journalistic inquiry, in the end, revealed a unique love story with the world of fashion as a backdrop.”

- Matt Tyrnauer, Director/Producer

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Locations

The movie was principally filmed at the following locations:

The Valentino fashion house Located at Rome’s Palazzo Mignanelli.

Château de Wideville Located near Paris, France, and built circa 1600, Valentino’s castle was once called home by Claude de Bullion, finance minister to Louis XIII.

Valentino’s Roman villa Located on Rome’s historic Via Appia Antica

Valentino’s London town house The 19th century mansion, located in London’s Holland Park, displays five late Picassos in its salon.

Chalet Gifferhorn Valentino’s ski retreat, located in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Valentino’s Manhattan apartment Overlooks New York’s Central Park

The T.M. Blue One Valentino’s 152-foot yacht employs a full-time staff of eleven and displays Andy Warhol’s portraits of the designer.

Valentino’s principle art is his couture, but he himself says his second art is making homes. Few people in our time have devoted as much attention to creating “perfect living” as Valentino. Gianni Agnelli, the late chairman of Fiat, and during his lifetime the unofficial king of Italy, used to marvel to friends that Valentino lived a more perfect and glamorous life than anyone else in Europe, including himself. For this reason, Valentino’s private environments became important backdrops to the film.

“You can’t fully comprehend Valentino’s outlook on life unless you see him at his castle, watch him appreciate the tens of thousands of roses in his garden, and see him amongst his priceless works of art,” says director Matt Tyrnauer. “His life is completely given over to aesthetics.”

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The Twilight of Haute Couture

One of the film’s brightest stars is haute couture itself. Today, haute couture appears to have entered a twilight phase amidst an era of global branding and mass retailing. The opportunity to capture, in the highest level of detail, the process of making haute couture was one of the reasons director Matt Tyrnauer was so attracted to the project.

“This was something very remarkable. I felt it was very important to capture what may be the last great couture house of the golden era still operating under the man who founded it,” Tyrnauer says.

Each haute couture dress sells for tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands of dollars. Valentino is often considered the last of the true couture masters, having been trained during the 1950’s under Jean Desses, who learned the craft of couture in the 1920’s. There is an unbroken lineage in the work of Valentino from the golden age of couture to the present day.

The Seamstresses

Valentino: The Last Emperor details the passion and emotion and labor that is a part of the haute couture process. From the sketchbook to the runway, the film captures the human drama of a dying art. To achieve this, many hours were spent filming Valentino’s team of highly trained couture seamstresses, who work in white lab coats in white rooms at Valentino headquarters in Rome’s Palazzo Mignanelli.

The seamstresses, for the most part, have worked for Valentino for generations. Some are the daughters of women who have worked there in the past, others have been there for nearly half a century. While the seamstresses are apprenticed and not formally trained, their mastery of the craft is unparalleled. At one time, there were two hundred seamstresses at work making Valentino couture, all by hand. At the time the movie was shot, there were approximately seventy.

Director Matt Tyrnauer was very intrigued with the couture process, and saw a lot of potential in elaborating on the process on film.

“In film school, when a professor showed us Buster Keaton’s The General, about a train engineer during the Civil War, he quoted Keaton as saying that, at the film’s end, he wanted the viewer to know how to drive a locomotive,” says Tyrnauer. “I had that in mind as we filmed the movie. I told the cinematographer that I wanted viewers to feel they knew how to make a couture dress by the time the film was over.”

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Valentinoʼs 45th Anniversary Celebration in Rome

The last sequences of the film cover Valentino’s 45th Anniversary celebration—an event lauding his life's work— that was held in Rome during July 2007. (Valentino had not shown his collections in Rome since the early 1990’s, having moved his runways shows to Paris, so this event marked an historic homecoming.)

Celebrities came in droves for the three-day event, which featured a grand exhibit opening at the Ara Pacis Museum, a sit-down dinner for Valentino and 900 guests at the Villa Borghese, the Valentino haute couture presentation for Fall 2007 and an outdoor party at the ancient Temple of Venus in the Roman Forum. All of Italy’s top political figures attended as well.

The filmmakers were unaware that Valentino’s retirement was on the horizon when they filming began in 2005. The possibility presented itself over the course of the production. The cameras followed, and captured the conception and execution of the anniversary celebration, an event designed to be the largest and most glamorous in the history of fashion. Valentino consistently denied that he would retire throughout 2006 and 2007. The truth about his stepping down becomes something of a mystery in the film.

The Pugs

Valentino’s six Pugs, all related, are among the film’s supporting players. The dogs accompany Valentino nearly everywhere he goes. Milton, Monty, Maude, Margot, Maggie and Molly come to work with Valentino daily. They fly the world with him on private aircraft, they join him on his yacht.

Among the Pugs’ memorable sequences in the film is one in which the dogs, awaiting takeoff on a private plane’s banquette, create a bit of distress for the displaced flight attendant who, as a result, has been left without a seat. In another scene, Milton threatens to upstage his master as he is filmed during his daily toilette, which includes a thorough tooth brushing and perfuming.

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About Valentino Garavani

Over the last 45 years, Valentino’s work has come to represent a phenomenon in the history of fashion. No other great designer has achieved such creative and entrepreneurial longevity, always maintaining the spirit and true strength of the company that bore his name.

Born in Voghera (Italy), Valentino is one of the most important couturiers and innovators in fashion. From his memorable march to the Pitti Palace in 1962 to the Legion d' Honneur bestowed upon him by the President of the French Republic and the Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in 2005, to his honorary Parisian citizenship - the Medaille de Ville de Paris – granted to him by the Mayor Bertrand Delanoë in 2007, his 45 years of creativity defines the very essence of Made in Italy. His name is an international symbol of elegance and imagination, timelessness and beauty.

At the beginning, some 60 years ago, after studying in Paris at the school of the Chambre Syndicale de the Couture Parisienne under the tutelage of Jean Desses and Guy Laroche, Valentino moved to Rome to open his first fashion workshop. It is here that he met Giancarlo Giammetti, who became his associate and took care of the business strategies for the shop.

These are the first years of the “Sweet Life”. Valentino’s star began to rise as word spread of a new, brilliant creator of fashion in Rome. In 1968’s “White Collection,” Valentino first used his monogram as a decorative element on his dresses and accessories, beginning what would become “logomania.”

Valentino was the first Italian designer to launch Prêt-à-porter collections, opening boutiques all over the world in the 70’s and 80’s and creating advertising campaigns using internationally renowned photographers.

In February of 1990, Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti founded, with a contribution from Liz Taylor, L.I.F.E., a charity for children infected with HIV.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the first 30 years of Valentino’s career were celebrated with a series of spectacular events. “Valentino: Thirty Years of Magic” was staged at the Palazzo Mignanelli, Valentino headquarters. A year later, the show came to New York, representing Italy during the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. More than 70,000 people came to show during its first two weeks.

In 2001, Julia Roberts accepted an Oscar wearing vintage Valentino, contributing to the launch of what went on to become one of the most significant fashion trends of the coming years: the Vintage. In July of 2007, Valentino celebrated his 45 in the industry. The event took place in Rome, with a grand retrospective show at the Ara Pacis Museum, an exceptional haute

11 couture parade and gala, accommodated in some of the most prestigious and evocative places in the capital, thanks to the sponsorship of the Comune di Roma, the Ministry of Assets and Cultural Activities, and the Presidency of the Republic.

The celebration brought the friends and collaborators of Valentino together with the most important journalists and fashion designers of the world, resulting in unprecedented media coverage. Aristocrats and others arrived in Rome in order to celebrate Valentino. This included: Shabanou of Iran, Miller and Pavlos of Greece, Ernst and Caroline of Hannover; colleagues and friends such as Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld and Tom Ford; and movie and music stars such as Uma Thurman, Sienna Miller, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Rupert Everett, Mick Jagger, Jennifer Hudson, and Eva Mendes.

In accordance with the celebrations, the city of Rome announced its desire to dedicate a museum to Valentino, a headquarters for a permanent collection of dresses, designs and materials from the archives, and also as a series of formatted initiatives for new professionals of Haute Couture and of fashion. The creative history of Valentino and his work – a symbol of Rome and its cultural life since the end of 50s – has become a legacy. The search for perfection and beauty had its beginning in Valentino and will never end.

About Giancarlo Giammetti

In the 1960’s, Giancarlo Giammetti interrupted his architectural studies in order to become Valentino’s associate. He took care of all strategic aspects of management and communication, quickly asserting himself as the co-craftsman of the brand’s fortune in the world, and as a true innovator of the fashion system. He introduced prêt-à-porter in Italy, sealed innovative license contracts, and studied new advertising strategies, constructing campaigns with the most important names in fashion photography.

He communicates Valentino to the world not only as an expressive individual and a great couturier, but also as a leader of the creative world. A style of the cultured and luxurious life that he himself - “the creative shadow of another creative”, as he’s been called, defines – embodies the Valentino brand.

In the ’90s Giammetti founded the Valentino Academy with Valentino, marking the first collaborative agreement between fashion and public administration, with a convention with the Comune di Roma to accommodate events destined to increase the city’s cultural prestige. With the couturier and the support of Elizabeth Taylor, he founded LIFE (Lottare: to fight, Informare: to inform, Formare: to form, Educare: to educate), an association to support children afflicted with AIDS.

Foreseeing the challenges of the 21st century, Giammetti strengthens the competitiveness of the Valentino brand on the worldwide market by signing the first agreement in Italy between fashion and finance in 1998. From that moment on, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, lacking direct heirs, determined the creative continuity of their brand, the world that they created.

12 About the Director

Matt Tyrnauer, Director/Producer

Matt Tyrnauer was born in Los Angeles and studied film at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. For sixteen years he has been an editor and writer for Vanity Fair magazine, where he is Special Correspondent. His feature articles for Vanity Fair include profiles of Martha Stewart (the August 2005 post-prison cover story, and a 2001 profile), Valentino Garavani, Siegfried and Roy, Tommy Hilfiger, Philippe Starck, Frank Gehry, green design pioneer William McDonough, producer Robert Evans, actor Greg Kinnear, and writer Bret Easton Ellis. This is Tyrnauer’s first film, yet filmmaking—in university--and film studies have long been part of his life. His childhood and early education were steeped in movies. His father was a successful TV writer and producer, responsible for scripting some of the best-known programs on TV, such as “Colombo,” “The Virginian” and “Murder, She Wrote”, which his father produced. Tyrnauer attended Crossroads School in Los Angeles, where the academic program was among the first in the nation to include serious film studies at the secondary school level. As a result, he was exposed to movies by Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, Rossellini, Bresson and many others at an early age. At Wesleyan University, he apprenticed under the film professor, Joseph W. Reed, a pioneer in American film scholarship. Tyrnauer aided Reed in his research on American masters John Ford, Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz and Robert Aldrich. Tyrnauer’s honors thesis was an in depth analysis of the films of Robert Aldrich, his favorite director. Tyrnauer’s journalism career began at Spy magazine. Graydon Carter, the co-founder of Spy, then hired Tyrnauer to write for him when Carter was editor of the New York Observer. In 1992, Tyrnauer edited the special edition of the New York Observer for the Democratic Convention in New York City. Later in 1992, Tyrnauer followed Graydon Carter to Vanity Fair, where he has worked ever since, as Editor-at-Large and author of major feature stories. He lives in New York City.

13 About the Team

Matt Kapp, Producer Matt Kapp created and produced, for the Emmy Award-winning PBS series American Masters, the feature-length documentary The Education Of Gore Vidal, which premiered at the 2003 Sundance film festival and was a People magazine and Entertainment Weekly critic's pick. From 1997 to 1999, he worked for Academy Award winner Lee Grant, associate-producing biographies for Lifetime Television's Intimate Portrait series, and has written and produced newsmagazine stories for series on PBS and MTV's LOGO channel. Carter Burden, Executive Producer Carter Burden is Chairman and CEO of Logicworks Corporation, the internet infrastructure firm he founded in 1993, which hosts web sites such as TruTV, Daily Candy, and The Onion. Burden is also the co-founder of Breaking Media, which publishes the web sites Dealbreaker, Above The Law, and Fashionista, and is founder of Darkstar Capital, a private multi-strategy investment firm. Adam Leff, Co-executive Producer Adam Leff has written numerous screenplays including Last Action Hero, PCU and Bio- Dome (which he also executive produced). He is an L.A.-based contributing editor for Vanity Fair. Tom Hurwitz, Director of Photography Tom Hurwitz is one of our country's most honored documentary cinematographers. Winner of two Emmy Awards and a Sundance Award for Best Cinematography, Hurwitz has photographed films that have won four Academy Awards and several more nominations. Over the last 25 years his television programs have won dozens of awards, including Emmy, Dupont, Peabody, Directors Guild and film festival awards for Best Documentary. Bob Eisenhardt, Editor Three-time Emmy Award winner and Oscar nominee Bob Eisenhardt has worked as a film editor, director, and producer. Films that he has contributed to garnered two Oscar nominations, nineteen Emmys, two Peabodies, and numerous other awards. Recent films he's edited include Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing, directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, and The Blues: Godfathers & Sons, directed by Marc Levin and executive produced by Martin Scorcese. Frederic Tcheng, Co-producer and Co-editor Frederic Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker who holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Directing from Columbia University in New York City. He has directed several short films and also shot and edited numerous award-winning short films for his colleagues at Columbia University.

14 Peter Miller, Sound Recordist Peter Miller is an Emmy-Award winning sound recordist who has worked on four Academy Award-winning documentaries (Into the Arms of Strangers, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', Best Boy,and The Ten Year Lunch) and two Academy Award-nominated documentaries (Paul Taylor: Dancemaker and Suzanne Farrell: Elusive Muse). He also recorded sound for Barbara Kopple's Wild Man Blues, My Generation, the ABC miniseries The Hamptons, and George Butler's Going Up River: The Long War of John Kerry, among others. Aimee Bell, Consulting Producer Aimee Bell is a Deputy Editor at Vanity Fair magazine. Highlights of her fourteen-year tenure at V.F. include editing columnists Christopher Hitchens and James Wolcott, overseeing the Africa issue, and portfolios on British Theatre, Swinging London, Young Royals, and John Singer Sargent. She produces the magazine's annual Music Issue and International Best-Dressed List portfolio. She was a co-producer of the 2005 documentary Eleanor: Godmother of American Fashion, which depicts the life of legendary fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert.

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VANITY FAIR 2004 So Very Valentino The Original Article by Matt Tyrnauer

All Valentino Garavani ever wanted was to dress the worldʼs most beautiful and famous women. All Giancarlo Giammetti wanted—from the day he met Valentino, on the Via Veneto, in 1960—was to help him do it. More than four decades later, the designer adored by Jacqueline Kennedy is a favorite of Jennifer Anistonʼs, Nicole Kidmanʼs, and Gwyneth Paltrowʼs. Stepping into the unparalleled luxury and style of Valentino and Giammettiʼs life, the author gets a never-before look at the devoted, passionate “family” behind one of the worldʼs richest fashion empires. by Matt Tyrnauer August 2004

Giancarlo Giammetti stands at a bar in the terminal of Ciampino Airport, in Rome. He orders an espresso, drinks it quickly, and, as he walks away, makes a discreet motion for his bodyguard to pay. Strikingly handsome with coal-black eyes and a mane of silver hair, Giammetti is dressed in a tan traveling coat, a black suit, black ankle boots, and dark glasses. The 14-seat Challenger jet he will take to Paris idles on the tarmac. Giammetti is a nervous flier, so standing around airports is disagreeable for him. Along with a chef, a majordomo, a valet, two butlers, and a maid, he is waiting for one of Italyʼs most famous men: Valentino Garavani, a “state power,” in Giammettiʼs words, who has been, over the last four decades, his business partner, onetime boyfriend, alter ego, and closest companion. “The boys,” as old friends call them, are among the most successful and wealthiest figures in the world of fashion. “They are the great survivors,” says Countess Consuelo Crespi, who, as the Rome-based fashion editor of American Vogue in the early 60s, was present at the creation of their empire, which last year had sales of more than $180 million, with a brand instantly recognized around the globe. “Ah, Valentino and Giancarlo,” Crespi continues with a sigh, “the brains of Giancarlo mixed with the talent and determination of Valentino. What a perfect marriage they have had.”

As in any marriage, one spouse habitually makes the other wait, and in this relationship the clock runs on Valentino time. Giammetti should be accustomed to it, after 44 years, but this morning I perceive a hint of impatience. His foot taps the tile floor, and he mills about the airless airport lounge, whose glass wall separates him from the group of servants and the ziggurats of luggage waiting to be loaded onto the plane. So many people cooling their heels in anticipation of one manʼs arrival gives the moment the air of a state occasion—in this case, one orchestrated by Federico Fellini. As Carlos Souza, the designerʼs longtime P.R. man, says, “Valentino is really the gentleman of the drop-dead entrances of the red carpet.” He is referring to the haute couture evening dresses Valentino makes, but I canʼt help thinking of the man himself when I hear this. Valentino brings a kind of alta moda Roman majesty to every little thing he does. Yet everything runs so smoothly in the Valentino bubble that you hardly realize any planning has gone into the events unfolding before your eyes.

Thereʼs a stir at the entrance of the terminal as a silver Mercedes-Benz pulls up, followed by a minivan. Valentino emerges from the car in a Prince of Wales–plaid suit under a shearling coat, with a flowered scarf around his neck, and enters the terminal, walking slightly ahead of his retinue. His tan is rich and close in color to his chestnut-brown hair, which is blown out to immobile perfection. He has a warm smile and bright, heavy-lidded eyes, which are partially hidden behind rose-colored aviators. After he and Giammetti greet each other with a kiss on each cheek, we proceed to the airplane. Three buses are needed, one to move Valentino, Giammetti, and staff, another for luggage, and a third to transport five of Valentinoʼs six pugs— Milton, Maude, Monty, Margot, and Molly.

On the plane Valentino and Giammetti take seats in front, facing each other. The household staff is seated aft, and soon joined by the pugs, which strain their Hermès leashes in an attempt to climb onto Valentinoʼs lap. Giammetti later tells me, “Valentino is embarrassed to be seen traveling with so many dogs. People look at him enough as it is.” He often asks his valets to bring the pugs out of the car after he has boarded the plane, sometimes in two shifts so that there seem to be fewer animals.

After takeoff Maude is released by a butler. She runs forward and jumps up on Valentinoʼs lap, but before she can settle in, another staff member appears with a light-blue linen cloth, which he unfurls and places under the dog to minimize the effects of shedding. At lunchtime Maude is returned to her fellow pugs, and a buffet, prepared by Valentinoʼs chef, is brought out. Despite the impeccable presentation, there is a tense moment when Valentino picks up his plate of salmon and scrapes the little wreath of baby greens onto his bread plate. He then carefully re-arranges the salmon in the center of the dish. “I hate the green everywhere,” he tells me with a guilty smile. “I like things simple.”

To be caught up in Valentino and Giammettiʼs slipstream of luxury is to feel slightly anesthetized. “Drowsy and happy—itʼs kind of narcotic,” says Joan Juliet Buck, the former editor of French Vogue, who has known the two men since the 1970s. “You feel cozy around them, wondering when theyʼll bring out the next quail egg. I met them in Rome, when I was at Womenʼs Wear Daily. Iʼd run into them in the street, and theyʼd be wearing their loden coats lined in chinchilla, and Iʼd have these conversations with Valentino: ʻDo you think itʼs too heavy? Does it make me look fat? You know, chinchillaʼs really not as heavy as mink.ʼ It was another universe. I was conscious that there were people in the world who designed clothes—the other couturiers—but then there was the universe of Valentino and Giancarlo.”

A staff of nearly 50 is employed to maintain Valentinoʼs 152-foot yacht and his five homes—a villa in Rome, a town house in London, Chalet Gifferhorn, in Gstaad, a Louis XIII château near Paris, and a Manhattan apartment. “Mr. Valentino can scan a room without even moving his eyes, and he knows where everything is,” says Michael Kelly, the majordomo at Château de Wideville, near Paris. “I always say to everyone, ʻWe could leave a pile of dust inside the front door, but if an ashtrayʼs not in the right place, itʼs that that heʼll see and not the dust.ʼ Iʼve worked for a lot of important people, but Iʼve never come across anyone who actually knows everything he has. Heʼll ring me and say to me, ʻMichael, do you remember those blue-and- white plates?ʼ Now, he knows exactly what heʼs talking about, and he knows exactly where they are, but itʼs a little test to see if I know. And a reminder. You know: No matter how good you are, Iʼm still No. 1.”

“How could I possibly explain the luxury?” asks Consuelo Crespi. “Yves Saint Laurent has never done this kind of thing. The other great designers have wonderful houses, beautiful things, but you look at Valentino and Giancarlo with their Picassos and Cy Twomblys, all the best quality—how can I say it without being vulgar? Itʼs very difficult.”

John Fairchild, editor-at-large at Womenʼs Wear Daily and W, is more direct. “Valentino and Giancarlo are the kings of high living. Every other designer looks and says, ʻHow do they live the way they do?ʼ I donʼt think they made the money that Valentino and Giancarlo did, because Giancarlo knows how to make money. If they did, they didnʼt spend the money like Valentino. No other designer ever did. There were times at the beginning of his career when he didnʼt have any money, but he always lived well. Marella Agnelli [widow of Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli] was telling me she went to visit this house of Giammettiʼs [in Tuscany]. She says she walked into the garden, and there were horses running around the field, all lit up. I mean lighting—the field was completely lit,” says Fairchild. “She was horrified. When the terrorism first started in Rome—the period when the Red Brigades were kidnapping people—Valentino was riding around in a bulletproof Mercedes. And do you know what color the Mer- cedes was? Red. My God, I thought, you must want to get blown up.”

Even today, at Valentinoʼs villa on the Appia Antica, in Rome, armed guards stand sentry at the stone gate. And Giammetti, on his regular walk across the Piazza di Spagna to and from his Via Condotti apartment and the fashion house in the Palazzo Mignanelli, is escorted by a guard. It is almost impossible for Valentino to venture out onto the streets of Rome alone, according to Giammetti: “He gets bothered, especially because there is this man who goes around and imitates him. Itʼs a nightmare. When people see Valentino walk down the street, they ask him, ʻAre you the real one or the fake one?ʼ It drives him crazy. In the beginning, [the impostor] was jumping on the runway and stopping shows, telling the girls, ʻYou donʼt know how to walk.ʼ And that was a show with [American Vogue editor] Anna Wintour and everybody else. Suddenly they see this crazy man there. I understand Valentino is a state power, but a state-power look-alike is a bit too much.”

Still, if there is a price to pay for being a major Italian economic force, Valentino and Giammetti are happy to pay it. Indeed, they wear it as a badge of honor for being more clever more often than anyone else. “There are many names in Italian fashion that have disappeared over the years,” says Crespi. “Only Valentino successfully made the jump to Paris when high fashion left Rome. None but Valentino got so many licenses internationally. You see, none of the others had a Giancarlo next to them.”

ʻDonʼt get used to this. Life is not like this, even for us,” says Giammetti after we land at Le Bourget Airport and are greeted by another group of servants, drivers, and bodyguards. This is not entirely convincing, for almost everything I see in the days I spend with Valentino and Giammetti is even more luxurious. However, there is a real desire in Giammetti to show outsiders that he can see beyond the walls of the bubble. One of the reasons the two men are such good partners is that Giammetti keeps his eye on the big picture while Valentino stays focused on the couturierʼs art.

At my first sit-down meeting with Giammetti, in the office of his Paris apartment, on the Quai dʼOrsay, where Picassoʼs Femme au Chapeau Assise hangs behind his desk, he stresses how different he and Valentino are. “Valentino does not open up to many people—maybe in his whole life to seven people. If you want to know what he is thinking, you speak to me,” he says. It comes down, in some ways, to geography: Giammetti is the garrulous Roman, and Valentino is the reserved native of Voghera, outside Milan. They are the perfect Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside team.

“Valentino is always supercalm, while I am a bit more agitated,” Giammetti continues. “The day after a fashion show, I wake up at four oʼclock to go on the Internet. Womenʼs Wear Daily and all the newspapers come out in the morning. So Iʼm a nervous wreck. Mr. Valentino receives a wake-up call at 11, and I hear from him: ʻHow are you?ʼ I ask him, ʻDonʼt you want to know what the reviews were?ʼ ʻOh, how are they?ʼ ʻTheyʼre O.K. You know, she wrote better the last time.ʼ ʻOh, sheʼs a bitch.ʼ Thatʼs it. He never looks at the newspapers.”

“Giancarlo and I understand each other completely without speaking. But his character is completely opposite to mine,” Valentino tells me in his Rome office, with Bronzinoʼs portrait of Eleanora di Toledo behind him. “I pay no attention to this life. I am always locked in my design studio. I am very grateful to Giancarlo, because he hides things from me to keep me in a good mood. There are only three things I can do—make a dress, decorate a house, and entertain people.”

Bruce Hoeksema, who was vice president of the house of Valentino until 1998, and who has lived with Valentino the man since 1982, has a unique perspective on the pairʼs relationship. “What Valentino has been enabled to do by Giancarlo—with a lot of help from others—is live in a way where he lets in only what he wants to let in,” he says. “If Valentino doesnʼt like something, he acts like itʼs not there. A lot of times he doesnʼt want to watch the news. He doesnʼt want to see anything bad, because it disturbs his perfect little world.”

From the time in 1960 when Valentino and Giammetti met and began an emotional and professional relationship, Giammetti realized his friend was a hothouse flower who needed to be protected in order to thrive. Over the years Giammetti has built a fortress around Valentino and a family of loyal friends and employees.

“The partnership has been such a success because one of the things Giancarlo did brilliantly was to strike the balance between protecting Valentino and putting his image out into the world,” says Crespi. “There has always been just the right amount of exposure, but also a carefully cultivated mystique. There were several important steps in Valentinoʼs life,” she continues. “First, when he was established and Marella Agnelli was getting her clothes there—no longer in Paris. Audrey Hepburn, though she got her evening gowns at Givenchy, would also go to Valentino. And he got Jackie Kennedy. His great luck was being born when he was. At that time people would change their clothes three or four times a day. He was made for that period, Rome in the 60s and 70s. And he also had the Arab world—Farah Diba and all these Arab princesses, who adored the clothes so much that they would order everything. It was incredible. He was lucky but also very, very talented. Finally, he and Giancarlo always knew when to change and how to do it. So they stayed on top.”

“I think they should get a medal or teach classes in the art of survival,” says Isabel Rattazzi, a longtime friend who is a photo archivist for architect Peter Marino. “Look around. All the others Valentino started out with—maybe with the exception of Karl Lagerfeld—are gone. Only Valentino remains, and today he is dressing Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston and J.Lo. To be able to stay relevant like that for decades is quite a trick.”

Valentino and Giammetti soon realized that it was not enough to make beautiful dresses; you had to push them and promote them. As they developed a following, they knew that they needed to manufacture not only the clothes but also the context for the clothes. “The world for which those kinds of clothes were designed was disappearing, so Valentino and Giancarlo had to make it exist,” says Joan Juliet Buck. “They had to show their clientele how to be glamorous.”

Via Veneto, 1960, July 31. Dolce vita. That was the day I met Valentino and my life changed,” says Giammetti. One of three children, Giammetti was in his second year of architecture school, living at home with his parents in the haut bourgeois Parioli section of Rome. His father owned an electronics store near the Via Veneto.

Valentino, six years Giammettiʼs senior, had moved to Rome eight months earlier, after having spent seven years in Paris studying fashion and working for the designers Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche. “I went to Via Veneto with two friends,” he recalls, “and at that moment it was very, very beautiful—all the Black Aristocracy from Rome and the very important people. Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini and Anita Ekberg, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton used to go there. You can imagine the heat in Rome in the summertime. You stay out until five in the morning with just your T-shirt. I was there and saw it was difficult to catch a table. I was just beginning, and very few people knew me. Of course, they saw pictures in some magazines—I had the cover on one magazine of the moment. I saw Giancarlo. He was alone at the Café de Paris. I didnʼt dare ask for a seat, but one of the people with me went over and said, ʻListen, you are all alone, and we canʼt find a table. Can we sit here?ʼ He said, ʻYes, yes.ʼ Of course, Giancarlo knew who I was.”

“I vaguely remembered that I?had read something about him,” says Giammetti, “because Valentino was already a celebrity. So we sat and started to talk. And I took him home in my little Fiat. I was leaving the day after for Capri, for my holiday. By coincidence, Valentino was also going to Capri. And so I met him there 10 days later. And then we started to see each other more.” A photograph from that era shows a couple of striking, dark-eyed young men, elegantly turned out, with hairstyles not unlike the ones they have today. “I have to say we were both very cute—that helped us a lot when we were starting out,” Giammetti confides.

In late 1959, Valentino had opened a fashion house on the Via Condotti with the backing of his father and an associate of his fatherʼs. “It was une maison de couture,” says Giammetti. “I say it in French because it was very much on the line of what he had seen in Paris.… Everything was very grand already. Models flew from Paris for his first show. Italian fashion was very limited at the time. There were a few good designers, but just a few.”

“At first,” Valentino recalls, Giammetti came around “just for fun.” Then he began to take an interest in the business. “He started to help me a lot.” Valentino was fluent in French, so he taught Giammetti to speak the language. “We had a very good relationship. He took care of things, so I was much more relaxed to do my job with more creativity and tranquillity.”

“When I arrived, the situation was not brilliant for Valentino, because in one year he had spent so much money that his fatherʼs associate pulled out,” recalls Giammetti. “We had to fight against bankruptcy.”

“Valentino would go on spending and spending on his haute couture,” says Consuelo Crespi. “The clothes were extremely expensive and he didnʼt ever think of making money.… Then Giancarlo came in. He said, ʻYou canʼt do this sort of thing. You canʼt make a sable coat,ʼ or this extravagant lining, or whatever. He was extremely good, and very detached. He never gave the impression that he was anxious.”

“Somebody told us we should start a new company. So we closed the old company and opened a new one,” says Giammetti, who soon stopped going to his architecture classes. “We moved from Via Condotti to a little apartment in Via Gregoriana … half of an apartment of an old lady.” The new office was on the top floor of the 16th- century palazzo they occupy to this day—except now they have all four floors.

“I remember one night we went to the old place on Via Condotti and took away all our chairs,” says Giammetti. “We stole those chairs, in yellow satin, that Valentino had made for his fashion house.”

Valentinoʼs mother, Teresa, moved from Voghera to Rome to help with the business. Eventually both his parents moved to Rome and lived with Valentino at his lavish villa, surrounded by gardens, on the Appia Antica.

“My first year, people were interested in me because I was new,” Valentino recalls. “Then the press started to come. I think Diana Vreeland was there, and Elizabeth Taylor,” whom he dressed for the premiere of Spartacus in Rome in 1961. “So the attention was there, but I didnʼt have buyers, and the international press at that moment was all in Florence. Finally, Giancarlo figured out that we had to go to Florence. That first year, they put me on last—the last day, the last hour. Can you imagine? But the American buyers all stayed. The collection was very successful.”

Giammetti says they were up all night writing orders. “Something happened when we met, and we never had another difficult moment on the financial side.” Valentino adds, “I believe in destiny. That evening in Via Veneto I met a person. Immediately I liked him very much and told him he had a fantastic character. He was well educated, and that was very important.”

After the breakthrough show in Florence, Valentino started to pick up the ladies of the international best-dressed crowd. Jacqueline de Ribes, in Paris, was an early champion, and Babe Paley and Jayne Wrightsman were soon seen in his clothes in New York. In 1966, confident of his client base, he moved his shows back to Rome, and there, two years later, he had one of his greatest triumphs, an all-white collection. “Absolutely sensational,” recalls Crespi. “He was using fabrics costing $2,000 a yard. All in white.” Valentino says, “That put me on top.”

In 1964 a client gave Valentino what he calls “the biggest gift of my life.” Jacqueline Kennedy bought six of his couture dresses, all in black and white, to wear during her year of mourning after J.F.K.ʼs death. According to Valentino, “Consuelo Crespi had a twin sister, Gloria Schiff, and I made her an ensemble in two pieces, in black organza, quite dressy. One day Consuelo called me from Rome and said, ʻI have to tell you something very, very important. Gloria went to a party, and Jackie Kennedy was there, and she was crazy about the outfit that Gloria was wearing. And she called Gloria after, and Gloria told her, “This is a new designer called Valentino.”ʼ

“In September ʼ64, I showed my collection at the Waldorf-Astoria for a benefit. And Jackie said she wanted to see the clothes. My saleslady, with a model, went to Fifth Avenue, where Jackie lived. They came back and said Mrs. Kennedy had ordered six outfits. And from then on she would order things from me. At the beginning I was Mr. Valentino and she was Mrs. Kennedy. Then it was Jackie and Valentino, and we became very, very close friends. One day in New York we had lunch at Quo Vadis, and when we were coming out of the restaurant all the paparazzi were there. The next morning there were pictures everywhere of me kissing Jackie. I was quite disturbed, because I didnʼt want her to think my press office called the photographers. So I called her immediately, but she was in Marthaʼs Vineyard. I left a message, and on Monday morning she called me back. I said, ʻJackie—Mrs. Kennedy—I am very, very sorry. I donʼt want you to think we called the photographers. I am starting to have quite a bit of publicity in America, so I really donʼt need those pictures.ʼ And she said, ʻListen, I love your work, and I like you very much. You are a fantastic human being. Iʼm going to take my friendship for you to my grave.ʼ This I swear to God,” he says, and he is crying.

In 1968, when Jackie Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis on the island of Skorpios, she wore an ivory georgette-and-lace dress designed by Valentino. “Oh, you have no idea the publicity we got,” he says. “We sold 60 copies of that dress.” He starts to cry again as he remembers Jackieʼs last days. “When she was not feeling well, I called her. I used to see her all the time, but now she said, ʻIt is better if we speak on the phone.ʼ She didnʼt want to be seen.”

ʻCarlos Souza is hiding from me!,” Giammetti yells into the intercom on his desk. His office has 26-foot ceilings and is so large that Mariella Ferrari, his secretary of 25 years, feels compelled to apologize for it. “The architecture of the building dictated the square meters. It was not Mr. Giammettiʼs choice,” she says, leading me into the airy space, furnished with neoclassical and modern pieces that offset an ornate carved 17th-century ceiling and cornice. Giammetti canʼt sit still. He swivels in his chair, plays with worry beads, folds his arms across his chest. “Probably the clothes in L.A. are not doing well,” he says just as Souza calls back from Los Angeles, where he is orchestrating the annual pre–Golden Globe and Oscar push to dress the movie stars in Valentino couture. Giammetti scribbles notes as Souza lists the possibilities so far: “Christina Applegate, mmm-hmm. Faye Dunaway is yes. Julianne Moore? Kate Beckinsale … Uma Thurman … Faith Hill.” Giammetti was awakened this morning by Souza, who had gotten an emergency call from the stylist LʼWren Scott requesting that dress No. 22 from the January couture collection—a white embroidered chiffon dress—be rushed to L.A. for her client Nicole Kidman.

Kidman ended up not wearing the outfit, and the red-carpet tally this year was disappointing. Kim Cattrall, Jennifer Aniston, and Gwen Stefani wore Valentino to the Golden Globes. Jennifer Aniston went to the Oscars in a Valentino ready-to-wear V- necked black gown, and Souza succeeded in outfitting four of the Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings in Valentino tuxedos.

In May the royal weddings of Crown Prince Felipe of Spain and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark were better events for the house. Maxima of Holland, Mette- Marit of Norway, Marie-Chantal of Greece, Archduchess Sophie of Austria, Rosario of Bulgaria, and Farah Diba of Iran all wore Valentino at both weddings.

“Recently the big thing about Valentino is that he has dropped most of the old-time women he dressed and heʼs going for the starlets,” says John Fairchild. “He picks them up like pieces of candy. First he has the old group—Iʼm sure heʼs still friendly with them—but then he goes over to the younger group and seduces them.”

“If Valentino had a down period, which he seemed to have in the 90s, he was always willing to look with a fresh eye and to explore the planet to re-invent,” says a fashion editor. “Saint Laurent faded in the 90s and never came back. Valentino kept going, and now the young Park Avenue princesses have come along, people who have heard about him through their mothers, maybe, and now they worship him.”

Upstairs from Giammettiʼs office, in three ateliers—one for eveningwear, one for daytime clothes, and one for wedding dresses—60 women in white coats work at long tables, stitching together the couture dresses, which range in price from about $15,000 for a non-embroidered evening dress to $200,000 for the most expensive wedding gown. Giammetti says that they “lose about $4 million a year on couture—a lot of effort for no profit.” But he would never shut down the operation, because it not only keeps Valentino happy but also distinguishes the house from other luxury brands.

Valentinoʼs seamstresses are known for their workmanship. Amalia DʼApuzzo, who retired after 41 years the day I toured the ateliers, said she had made many dresses for Jackie Kennedy. (Her parting gift was an autographed photo of Valentino in a silver frame. She says she will keep it by her bed.) “My ladies are not capable of making imperfect dresses,” Valentino tells me. “They learned with me. Sometimes I say, ʻYou are too slow. Go a little faster.ʼ I do my prêt-à-porter like this”—he snaps his fingers—“but they are not capable of that.” Prêt-à-porter collections are created by a different set of seamstresses, in Turin. Valentino oversees every design for all of his womenʼs collections—five a year. There is also a menʼs-wear line, and a new, younger womenʼs line, R.E.D. There are currently 35 Valentino boutiques in 16 countries.

In the 1970s, Giammetti was one of the first to exploit licensing to bring in extra revenue. By the late 80s there were 50 licenses, including bathroom tiles, cigarette lighters, and a mauve-and-platinum Lincoln Continental. After a reorganization of the company in the 90s, only three licenses remain, for perfumes, sunglasses, and jeans.

It was on the licenses that Valentino and Giammetti got rich, and in 1998 they really cashed in, when they sold the company for approximately $300 million to HdP, an Italian conglomerate controlled, in part, by the late Gianni Agnelli, the head of Fiat. In 2002, Valentino S.p.A., with revenues of more than $180 million, was sold by HdP to Marzotto Apparel, a Milan-based textile giant, for $210 million. It was rumored that Agnelli encouraged the sale, because he was displeased with Valentinoʼs and Giammettiʼs personal expenses, a claim Giammetti bristles at. “I never heard that, but [businessmen] have a perspective of fashion which is completely old-fashioned,” he says. “They believe fashion is a little show with models—beautiful girls they would like to know—who walk on the runway. Thatʼs it. They donʼt know how much work is behind it, and how important the image of the founder and the designer is for the company. You cannot talk about the dresses of Valentino without thinking about him, and when you think about him, you think about the glamorous life he leads, and all that adds to the product. Each designer has his own niche—Dolce & Gabbana with the rock world, Prada with the intellectual and artistic world—and with his personality he adds class to the product. Our world is part of the product.”

Giammetti and Valentino, who have a three-year contract with Marzotto, say they expect to renew when the current contract expires. Giammetti plans to start work in the next few years on a Valentino museum in London. Neither man wants to retire, though Giammetti is realistic about the prospect. “We are at the end,” he tells me. “There is no more saying ʻin the next 10 years.ʼ But we will not get boring. We will enjoy ourselves and do it well.”

ʻI think I have succeeded through all these decades because I was always concerned with making beautiful clothes,” says Valentino. “Forget about fashion—the grunge look, the messy look. I cannot see women destroyed, uncombed, or strange. I want to make a girl who arrives someplace and makes people turn and say”—he gasps— “ʻYou look sensational!ʼ”

“Valentino never strays over the border to the odd,” says John Fairchild. “He makes, probably, the most beautiful evening dresses in the world, but he is not one of those designers who influence the course of fashion—Iʼm talking about Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, and John Galliano in particular. Valentino is completely different.… In his youth he wasnʼt in the category of influencing fashion, like Balenciaga, Chanel, or Dior. Valentino just wanted to dress very important, beautiful women. Heʼs trying to make clothes that women want to wear, and be well dressed and feminine.”

You could never see Valentino commanding his white-coated seamstresses to rip the fabric on a $100,000 couture skirt, as John Galliano sometimes does. Or going on opium or drinking binges, roaming the streets half naked, and sleeping in a monastic cell, as Yves Saint Laurent is said to have done. There have been no nervous breakdowns, no hospitalizations, no shrinks. “Heʼs the kind of person who would tell you, ʻWhy do you need to pay a shrink? Iʼll tell you whatʼs wrong with you,ʼ” says the architect Peter Marino, who worked with Valentino on his New York apartment and his yacht.

“He is not one to brood, not an artist like Yves, who just happened to make clothes,” says a fashion editor. “They donʼt look for inspiration in the same way. Yves was the theater, the arts. Valentino—not that he is not cultured, but I donʼt think that the arts are his food. Yves is sketching, drinking, druggy, always dark. Pain. Valentino is la dolce vita! Everything is a party.”

If Valentino is frequently compared to Yves Saint Laurent, Giammetti is even more often compared to Saint Laurentʼs business partner and former lover, Pierre Bergé. The longtime rivalry between the two men has caused people to take sides. “Everybody always said, ʻPierre Bergé, Pierre Bergé,ʼ but the truth is Giancarlo is much smarter,” says Diane von Furstenberg. “Of all the businesspeople in the fashion world, Giancarlo should get more credit than heʼs getting, and he never takes credit. As opposed to Pierre Bergé, who demands the credit.”

Giammetti cannot hide his contempt for Bergé, who, he recalls, “once was asked in the 60s, ʻWhat do you think of this new talent, Valentino?ʼ And he said, ʻOh, itʼs such a pity—he dresses whores and kept women.ʼ I havenʼt forgotten that and I never will.” Decades later, Bergé told Womenʼs Wear Daily, “When one has a talent as fragile as Mr. Valentino, one shouldnʼt even be allowed to pronounce the name of Mr. Saint Laurent. I donʼt care what Mr. Valentino and Mr. Giammetti think. They make me laugh. Ha, ha, ha! I know they hope to be like Mr. Bergé and Saint Laurent … but itʼs all just wishful thinking.”

ʻAre you going to write an article about a couple of faggots?” asks Giammetti. “I think you should. I want that kind of story. Because people are so fucking superficial in this world.… This is not a story about money or fashion. This is a story of love.… There has never been an article about us that was like that, but now I believe it is too late to keep a secret that is not a secret. I think the world has changed a lot, and what was once embarrassing to read about yourself is not now.”

Valentino and Giammetti were together for 12 years. Neither ever discussed their relationship with anyone outside their closest circle of friends—not even with their mothers. Teresa Garavani and Lina Giammetti lived with their sons until the women died, Teresa in 1977 and Lina in 1996. “Itʼs typical of the Italian mentality,” says Bruce Hoeksema. “Itʼs also the Catholic mentality. When Giancarlo sees two guys kissing in a restaurant, heʼll say, ʻThatʼs disgusting.ʼ Heʼll walk by two guys holding hands in the street and mutter, ʻFaggots.ʼ He knows very well that they could turn around and say, ʻYeah, what are you?ʼ … Valentino and I always have to arrive someplace in separate cars. Valentino must always have a woman beside him at a premiere.… They are a different generation.”

“I never told my mother I was gay,” says Giammetti. “We never talked about it. She lived in my apartment for seven years. She knew my boyfriends—Valentino, obviously, she saw every day, but others who were very close to her, and when we broke up, these people cried to my mother. She comforted them.” The day before our interview, Giammetti visited Linaʼs grave at Prima Porta Cemetery, in Rome. (His family mausoleum was designed by his close friend and ex-boyfriend Tommaso Ziffer, who incorporated in the four corners of the tomb mosaic reproductions of needlepoint pillows Giammetti made for Lina.)

At the time they met, Giammetti admits, his relationship with Valentino caused a scandal. “When I quit school, my mother was upset, because obviously people were talking,” he says. “My father was one of those playboys in Via Veneto—everyday, macho men. But this was more difficult—a guy who goes to work in fashion. Fashion was not seen as a serious business the way it is today, and you didnʼt want your 19- year-old son suddenly going to work for an unknown designer.… But within a few years they understood not just the passion I put in my work but my relationship with an extraordinary person. They adored Valentino like a son. I am just sad that my father died very early—in 1970—when I couldnʼt still really show him how I could fulfill his dreams.”

The mothers of the two partners were “great friends,” according to Hoeksema. They were also giant forces in the lives of their sons, whose personalities are said to mirror theirs. “Giancarloʼs mother was very gregarious,” says Hoeksema, “which Giancarlo definitely is, but I think Giancarlo is a bit more complicated. He can be very moody. You can go out of his office and heʼs in a fabulous mood—then you walk back five minutes later and heʼs in the worst mood ever. Valentinoʼs mother was more controlled, conservative.”

“My mother was aesthetically more conscious,” says Giammetti. “She had more fun with young people. Valentinoʼs mother was a very strong woman, very wise. Just think: a woman born and raised in a small city, where all her interests were in a fruit tree or a chicken, and suddenly her son tells her he wants to leave for Paris because he wants to make dresses. They sent him to Paris when he was 17. They sent him money every week. That is beyond love or trust. I think she was extremely smart.”

From the time he was four, it was clear that Valentino was into fashion. “My parents let me do anything I wanted,” he recalls. “I was very spoiled. I wouldnʼt touch this or that. I didnʼt like garlic, and I had my own fork, and spoon, and knife, and glass, because I didnʼt want to drink from anyone elseʼs. I remember asking at the age of 14 or 15 to have my sweaters made. I didnʼt like the sweaters in the shops. I would say, ʻI want a sweater with stripes, in this color and this color.ʼ Once, my mother got me a blazer with gold buttons. I didnʼt like the buttons, so they had to be changed. I had unbelievable parents, and I never deceived them. Never, never, never, never! Iʼm very proud of that.”

Valentinoʼs tendency to take charge was also in place at a young age. “I had lots of friends in Voghera, and I was the little chief,” he says. “I was the one who decided, ʻTonight weʼll go to see this film.ʼ I didnʼt do it because I wanted to be boss. I did it because I thought—maybe pretentiously—that what I?chose was the best.”

If Teresa was permissive, she was not overtly affectionate. “She was not somebody who would take you and—ma, ma, ma—kiss you like this,” says Valentino. “I donʼt think she kissed me more than four times a year.… I was always very close to her, but she was not very open in her affections.”

“Very similar to her darling son,” says Giammetti. “Very similar. He is the same in not really trusting many people. Valentinoʼs mother was a very suspicious woman. She once found some of his pet flamingos dead, and she began to suspect that one of the gardeners had poisoned them. She took one of the dead ones and put it in the refrigerator and performed an autopsy to satisfy herself that it had not been poisoned.”

Valentino possesses a similar lack of trust. “He locks himself behind quite a few doors,” says Hoeksema. I assume heʼs speaking metaphorically, but he means it literally. “In Rome he has maybe six doors he locks before he goes to bed. When there is not a door to lock, it is a problem.” Hoeksema remembers a trip they made to the Seychelles. “There were bungalows, all open,” he says. “You could close the little shutters at night, but there were no windows. That totally freaked Valentino out. He piled chairs up in front of the windows and doors and set out bottles so that if anybody moved anything the bottles would fall over and wake him up. Maybe he has this fear that somebodyʼs going to come in while heʼs sleeping and do something to him. Or just look at him.”

Valentinoʼs most recent house is a renovated 19th-century mansion in Londonʼs Holland Park. The centerpiece is the grand salon, which features five late Picassos, lit with pin spots. A breakfast room is lined with 200 Meissen plates, and the small salon has two Basquiats and one painting by Damien Hirst.

Of all his properties, Valentino prefers the Château de Wideville, on 120 acres in Davron, about 30 minutes outside Paris, which he bought in 1998 and had meticulously restored by the late Henri Samuel, the dean of French interior design. (The castle had been previously decorated by the late Renzo Mongiardino, the greatest of the Italian decorators, who also worked on Valentinoʼs Roman villa and Giammettiʼs Tuscan house.) A rose brick château built circa 1600, the castle was once the home of Claude de Bullion, the finance minister for Louis XIII, who slept at Wideville, according to a plaque in the castle, on January 22, 1634, “to rest after a hunt.” During the reign of Louis XIV, Madame de la Vallière, one of his mistresses, lived at Wideville. Her bedroom had a mirrored-walled chapel with a 30-foot-high ceiling, which was converted into a bathroom.

On a gray day in January, I tour Wideville with Valentino and five pugs. “I am showing you a garden in winter,” Valentino says as we pass through the old rose garden, the new rose garden, the vegetable garden, a field of lavender, and the pear and quince arbors. There are no flowers or even leaves to be seen, yet Valentino pauses at several bushes to give vivid descriptions of blossoms from springs and summers past. After the tour, we stand in a drawing room under Francis Baconʼs Portrait of George Dyer and page through two photo albums, looking at recent garden parties at the château. Coming upon one photo, he recoils and covers it with his hand. “This is a table with the wrong chairs! They donʼt match, and I cannot look,” he says.

In Valentinoʼs Rome office, which is decorated with gilded Empire furniture, leopard- print carpeting, and hand-embroidered 18th-century draperies, almost every flat surface is covered with framed photographs. “This is on my boat with King Constantine of Greece. Princess Diana. Giancarlo with the two Princes of Greece. Prince Charles with the two boys. Haakon of Norway. Remember the King of Jordan—Hussein? Princess Margaret in my house in Appia. This is my audience with the Pope. This is with Queen Elizabeth. This is with Sharon Stone.”

The last photograph he comes to was taken at “Giancarloʼs house in the country, for Seanʼs communion. This is our family,” he says. Sean, 20, is Sean Souza, the son of Carlos Souza. He and his brother, Anthony, 18, are the godsons of Valentino and Giammetti. Souza, who met Valentino and Giammetti in 1973, his ex-wife, Charlene Shorto de Ganay (the mother of Sean and Anthony), Hoeksema, and Daniela Giardina, the head of publicity for the house for 30 years, make up the core of the Valentino group. Others float in and out, most notably Tommaso Ziffer and Georgina Brandolini, who for 19 years worked in P.R. for Valentino.

“Itʼs not that they donʼt have their own relatives,” observes Mikhail Baryshnikov, who got to know Valentino in the late 1970s, when the fashion house sponsored the Roland Petit ballet. “Itʼs that they are clinched together. The boundaries are sometimes unclear to outsiders—friends, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends. It melts into one. They are very loyal and very aggressive in the defense of one another, and if someone attacks one of them for the wrong reason, they mobilize.”

“People related to us by blood are not as close to us,” Giammetti tells me. “We have known Carlos and Daniela for 30 years, Bruce more than 20. Very few people can say theyʼve been together at least seven hours a day for the last 40 years, like Valentino and me. Itʼs a very special relationship, which, of course, is sometimes difficult. Because you have little time for other people, and sometimes little time for yourself.”

The Valentino entourage often travels together—to Paris for the collections, to Valentino and Giammettiʼs various homes, to the yacht, where Giammetti, for a period in the 90s, made everyone do needlepoint. “Except Valentino,” he says. ots of people have admired our family and questioned why they couldnʼt have the same,” says Hoeksema. “It starts with big generosity, on the part of Valentino and Giancarlo. Itʼs a wonderful quality and we all have it. Not every moment is perfect. You have your ups and downs and disagreements. But in the end we all understand the fundamental sentiments of one another.”

As the lone American among Latins, Hoeksema didnʼt immediately adjust to the passionate dramas that are occasionally played out in the Valentino family— particularly between the two godfathers. “To really exhibit your passions, and your love, you have to have fights,” he says. “Giancarlo likes drama, and I think Valentino does, too. Sometimes Giancarlo needs to provoke Valentino into an explosion. Theyʼll be discussing something, and Giancarlo will say something Valentino doesnʼt like, and then Valentino will say something that Giancarlo doesnʼt like—to give it back to him. And then you see Giancarlo will decide that that calls for a full-out assault. Heʼll go after Valentino and needle him until it goes boom! Valentino might say the food last night at the dinner Giancarlo gave wasnʼt so good. And then Giancarlo will insult Valentinoʼs cook. And Valentino will say he has the best cook, and that Giancarlo doesnʼt know the difference—which is true. Giancarlo doesnʼt really care much about food, and Valentino is passionate about it. And it builds up into this huge thing, all because an omelet last night wasnʼt cooked properly.”

As Giammetti says, the story here is about love, and there is clearly love between the two men. You can see it subtly expressed in the way Giammetti sometimes looks at Valentino. “Itʼs probably a fraternal love now,” observes Gwyneth Paltrow, who has been a muse to Valentino and a close friend of Giammettiʼs since the late 90s. Giammetti is the godfather of Paltrow and Chris Martinʼs new baby. “You know what people are like after theyʼve always been together? Thereʼs this love between them. Itʼs not sexual, but itʼs a love they donʼt have for anyone else. Itʼs old love. Itʼs survival love.”

“One important side of my character,” Giammetti confides to me one night, “is that I never break with people. This family has stayed together because of me, because when Valentino gets mad he cuts—that is that. I think it is so sad when I hear people say, ʻI was with this woman or man for 18 years. I donʼt see him anymore. I donʼt even know if he is still alive.ʼ That shocks me. I remember when Carlos left and moved to Brazil and married Charlene. Valentino refused to speak to him, but I always talked to Carlos. Then one day Carlos called and said he had a baby boy, Sean. I handed the phone to Valentino, and he started to cry and cry. I always try to maintain certain relationships and to have people around us. Thatʼs why our family has grown so much. Because nobody leaves.”

Matt Tyrnauer is a Vanity Fair special correspondent. TIME MAGAZINE

Ode to a Fashion Legend, Valentino: The Last Emperor By Richard Corliss Wednesday, Mar. 18, 2009

Valentino: The Last Emperor

"I know what women want," says Valentino Garavani in Matt Tyrnauer's swank new documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor. "They want to be beautiful." But the question any couturier must answer is, What kind of beautiful do they want to be? For Valentino, as he and the fashion house he created are called, it's the very traditional kind: the long lines and soft fabrics of Hollywood Golden Age couture. From 1964, when he captured Jacqueline Kennedy's attention and began clothing her in a monarch widow's blacks and whites, the little man with the slim, feline smile has outfitted a host of high-end one-name celebrities — Liz, Diana, Julia — and the Euro- royalty whose tastes influenced the decisions of retail buyers, country club wives and the more ambitious shopgirls.

Though in the late '60s Valentino dressed his muses and himself in rakish, now garish mod, he soon recognized the allure of gowns that for centuries had made rich women attractive commodities. Other designers might reflect the hustle (without the bustle) of contemporary life — Lacroix, sweetie. Valentino didn't make statements; he made dresses, as he proclaimed, "for women who actually wear them." A warming elegance was his trademark: la belle, la perfectly swell romance. This ethereal chic served the emperor and his clients well for ages; one journalist calls him "the only designer in the world who's managed to last 45 years." But not 46. Two years ago, at 75, Valentino was abruptly retired by Permira, the private equity group that had bought the company.

This attentive, affectionate portrait, which traces the final year of the designer's career, shows that it's good to be the king. Valentino is the creative wellspring, the man whose intricate demands have to be satisfied. And he is not easily satisfied. One of the last designers whose couture was handmade — his assistants, one of his backers noted, never touched a sewing machine — he relies on his invisible artists, the seamstresses of northern Italy, for the anachronistic grace of his frocks. He designs the dresses; they make them. Antonietta de Angelis, the head seamstress of the house, has some of her boss's imperious temperament. She knows that anything less than perfection is unacceptable, for a master who keeps wanting to improve on it. After designing a perfect white dress, a symphony of subtle movement, he ponders his creation and announces, "But some sequins can't hurt."

The emperor might never have succeeded if not for his prime minister: Giancarlo Giammetti, who from the beginning ran the business, ran interference, made the deals and, for much of their 45 years, was Valentino's lover. They met in a cafe on the Via Veneto in 1960, the year Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita made that street famous, and established Rome as the Mecca and Gomorrah of European society. (Nino Rota's music from La Dolce Vita and other Fellini films ornaments the sound track.) Valentino had just come from Paris to open a salon; Giammetti was still in college. Their serendipitous encounter cued a grand, contentious, lifelong partnership. A handsome man whose strength is revealed in whispers, Giammetti seems fulfilled by his crucial supporting role. When an Italian journalist asks him, "How would you define, in one word, your choice to live in another man's shadow?", Giammetti replies, "Happiness."

Happiness is accommodating a man whose certainty can sound like petulance. ("People have to be on their knees in front of me," the master says.) It's no small challenge, Giammetti tells Tyrnauer, "to be with Valentino as a friend, as a lover, as an employee." He must deliver the emperor's whims to others: "Valentino says, 'If the bathrooms are set up like that, I'm not coming.'" At times the boss is ready to wave the whole business away with his expressive hands. "I don't care about the collection," he fumes. "My dogs are much more important." (He and Giammetti have a half-dozen pugs, who travel everywhere with the couple, and whose teeth Valentino meticulously brushes.)

The emotional vectors of their relationship are both constant and complex. When Giammetti pursues one line of argument, Valentino huffs, "Once you get an idea in your head..." "And you're not stubborn?" asks Giammetti. "No," Valentino insists. A pause. "Almost never." Yet everyone in the couture world knows that each is an incomplete half of one fabulous organism. Even Giammetti is impressed: "I've never seen two people so close for so many years, not being married." For the designer of couture inspired by American movies, it's only fitting that he and Giammetti should live out an old-fashioned Hollywood romance.

Every love story needs a threat, and here it's money and the people who wield it. Valentino's lifestyle is beyond lavish; with the villas and chateaux, the extravagant parties, he's been more of a jet-setter than the people who buy his clothes. Somebody had to subsidize all that luxe, and in 1998 he and Giammetti sold their company to the HDP conglomerate, which four years later turned it over to a textile group run by Matteo Marzotto. Giammetti treats the young plutocrat as a nuisance at best: "Matteo is a very nice guy. I like him as a friend. But whatever he says has no value." Marzotto returns the compliment to his elder: "He's like an old lion. He's trying to roar, like this, but he has no voice." In fashion, as elsewhere, money talks; and by the end of the film Marzotto has cashed out, selling the firm to Permira for $1.1 billion.

Haute couture is a small part of a modern fashion house's income — just a way to get publicity for the brand. The real money is in the accessories: handbags, shoes, perfume. But the old-school Valentino declares that his gift is "to design and to create dresses. I always did this. I am not capable to do anything else. I am a disaster in everything else." In his climactic show, which everyone seems to know is his last, his admirers shed tears as they congratulate him. Karl Lagerfeld, another king designer- dinosaur, tells Valentino, "Compared to this, the rest of us are making rags." Shortly after the show, Permira announces that the 35-year-old Alessandra Facchinetti will be the new couturier for the house of Valentino.

"I only remember the things I want to remember." Viewers of this brisk, poignant documentary have to believe that everything Valentino would want to remember — and want them to remember — is right here, the narrative line flawless, the sequins in place.