Valentino

Valentino was founded in 1960, when Valentino Garavani established his fashion house on Via Condotti in Rome, Italy, with the backing of his father and his father’s associate Giancarlo Giammetti. Garavani had trained in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and apprenticed at Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche before returning home, and the house set out to bring couture drama to Italian dressing, with Giammetti handling the business side.

Valentino’s international debut took place in 1962 in Florence, the Italian fashion capital of the time, and Valentino gained popularity in 1967 after releasing their “no color” collection which consisted of white, beige, and ivory apparels. The label’s signature arrived early, a crimson mixed from carmine and scarlet with a hint of orange, and his style was described as jet-set chic.

Menswear came later as a formal expansion. The label staged the first Valentino menswear show at Milan Fashion Week in 1985. The design language drew from the house’s couture grammar, sharp Roman tailoring, fluid evening fabrics, and the Garavani appetite for color and embellishment, placing the brand in the same Italian cohort as Giorgio Armani and, later, Gucci, though Valentino stayed closer to dressed-up formality than Armani’s softer suiting.

Under Pierpaolo Piccioli, menswear shifted toward sportswear codes alongside tailoring, including track suits and windbreakers embroidered with colored beads, and bright sneakers with ethnic flourishes such as detachable leather fringing, and in 2023 Piccioli staged a standalone Milan men’s show where tailoring was paired with floral ties and soft fabrics.

The business has changed hands several times. In 1998, Garavani and Giammetti sold the company for approximately $300 million to the Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali (HdP), an Italian conglomerate controlled, in part, by the late Gianni Agnelli, the head of Fiat.

In 2002, Valentino S.p.A. was sold by HdP to Marzotto Apparel, a Milan-based textile giant, for $210 million, and the Marzotto family spun off its fashion assets in 2005 to create Valentino Fashion Group. In July 2012, the Qatari investment fund acquired Valentino, driving its exponential growth. Kering purchased 30% of Valentino in July 2023. They intend to purchase the entire company by 2028.

Creative direction has also shifted, from Garavani’s retirement in 2007, to the Chiuri and Piccioli partnership, to Piccioli alone from 2016, and in March 2024, Valentino announced the departure of Piccioli, as a joint decision, followed by the appointment of Alessandro Michele as the next creative director.

Today the house dresses red-carpet clients, couture customers, and a younger ready-to-wear audience drawn by Michele’s romantic, historically layered approach, sitting in the Roman couture tier of the market alongside Dior and Chanel.