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This is the backdrop for Valentino: The Last Emperor, a documentary about the Italian designer Valentino Garavani that follows him from June 2005 to his retirement some two years later, heralded by a blowout celebration in Rome of his 45th year in business. The festivities–truly a once-in-a-lifetime party even for jaded fashion insiders–included a retrospective at the Ara Pacis Museum and a huge party inside the Temple of Venus, part of the ruins of the Roman Forum just across the Coliseum. (My invitation was lost in the mail.)
Valentino himself comes across as a relic from another age, with his helmet of carefully arranged hair and savage tan, and he acts the part of the tetchy artiste to the hilt. Giammetti is the business guy, the one who takes interminable meeting after meeting and calms the designer down (muttering a few mamma mias along the way) when he’s upset over a suggestion to add more ruffles to a dress or is unhappy with the presentation of his gowns at the anniversary exhibition. Valentino’s grand lifestyle–he visits his chateau in France and goes skiing in Gstaad, constantly accompanied by a clutch of pugs–is contrasted with the utilitarian atmosphere of the workrooms, where workers painstakingly hand-stitch the maestro’s creations. Yet their work is valued–the fearsome head seamstress is the only person Valentino is seen to speak to in deferential tones, and the arrival of current and former workers at his anniversary exhibition brings tears to his eyes.
