AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The famed fashion designer Valentino Garavani has died. He was 93 years old. He was a member of the old guard of fashion titans, dressing women in the halls of power and in the upper echelons of Hollywood. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Valentino Garavani, often going by just Valentino, had a signature color, Valentino red. It's vibrant. It's lush. It exudes a certain type of femininity. In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2009, he recounted being sent to Barcelona as a young designer and seeing all these women dressed in red. And he said to himself...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VALENTINO GARAVANI: I said red is going to be my lucky color, and I think it's a color so good for everybody. And believe me or not, when you are in a party...
LIMBONG: And most of the women are wearing black...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GARAVANI: ...When you see two women dressed in red coming in, you have a sort of big, big joy in your heart because they look sensational. It's a very happy color.
LIMBONG: Valentino was born in 1932, in a small Italian city. In 1960, he met his business and romantic partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, and together they founded the fashion house that make Valentino a defining figure in haute couture with beauty as a defining principle. He dressed Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Meryl Streep, Princess Diana and more. In 2008, Valentino and Giammetti were the subject of the documentary, "Valentino: The Last Emperor." Director Matt Tyrnauer told NPR in an interview in 2009 that Valentino's rise was just as much a product of timing as talent.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
MATT TYRNAUER: The world economy was very different. Fashion was very different. The world was very different. Women changed three times a day in certain levels of society. Women work now. The clients aren't there, and now fashion is corporatized. So Valentino was literally - to use the cliche - a boy with a dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF CURTIS MAYFIELD'S "THINK")
LIMBONG: Valentino retired in 2008. And seeing as how both the fashion world and the rest of the world has continued to change, it's unlikely we'll ever see another Valentino again.
Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CURTIS MAYFIELD'S "THINK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
