Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani dies aged 93

Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani has died, the newspaper La Repubblica Daily reported.

“The Emperor is no more,” the publication wrote. Valentino Garavani passed away at the age of 93 in Rome, at his Roman residence, where he chose to live and work throughout his life.

According to the newspaper, the funeral will take place on 23 January in Rome, at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Garavani was born on 11 May 1932 in the northern Italian town of Voghera. At the age of 17, he moved to Paris, where he studied at the School of Fine Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. In 1959, Valentino Garavani returned to Rome and, a year later, founded the Valentino fashion house together with his partner Giancarlo Giammetti.

His first show, which brought him orders from international buyers, took place in Florence in 1962. Among the couturier’s first clients was Jacqueline Kennedy, who in 1964 ordered six dresses to wear during the mourning period for her assassinated husband, former US President John F. Kennedy.

In 1998, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti sold the Valentino brand to the Italian conglomerate HdP for $300 million. In 2002, it was acquired by Marzotto Appareli. Garavani announced his retirement from the fashion world in 2007 after his final show in Paris.

By Vugar Khalilov