Giancarlo Giammetti: ‘We couldn’t launch Valentino today’

I’m on Giancarlo Giammetti’s sofa in Knightsbridge, sitting beneath three vast Francis Bacons. The next day he is scheduled to accept the Outstanding Achievement Award at the British Fashion Awards on behalf of his long-term business partner, the 91-year-old couturier Valentino Garavani. “Those aren’t actually a triptych,” he says, gesturing at the impressive and contorted figures behind us. “I bought them individually and put them together.” Elsewhere there are giant Cy Twomblys and a larger-than-life silver silkscreened Elvis. Giammetti has made a career out of putting things together to dramatic effect, most notably one of the most successful fashion businesses in history.

It began when he met a talented but free-spending 28-year-old ingénue Garavani in Rome in 1960 — a charmed meeting of fresh design and business smarts. “I’m not famous for being nice,” smiles an absolutely charming Giammetti, who helped Garavani cut costs at the start. “I wanted to make sure Valentino wasn’t disturbed from his vision. That’s how he became what he became. It couldn’t happen now — you’re a superstar for two seasons, then gone. And just who are these so called ‘influencers’ influencing?”

Giammetti tells me he is “emotional” about the BFC award, “particularly because it’s 15 years after Valentino and I stopped actually working at the label”. He also says the fashion event at the Royal Albert Hall is part of a different universe from the one he was once a master of. “We left because the industry changed and meetings were all about money, not design. Sales forecasts decided what got created. The conglomerates made each label work to the same model. We couldn’t launch today. If we did, we’d be doing slow fashion, inviting fewer people to buy, at the highest quality. You don’t have to be judged on the number of dresses you make. And sustainability must be everyone’s preoccupation right now.”

While Giammetti won’t be drawn on the state of the Valentino business today, the biggest news in the industry last week was Gucci owner Kering’s completion of a deal to acquire a 30 per cent stake in the brand from Mayhoola, the Qatari investment fund that bought Valentino in 2012 and also owns Balmain. Valentino’s revenues were €1.4bn last year, and Kering paid €1.7bn for the shares. The deal gives Kering the option to buy the remaining 70 per cent of the company within five years.

Valentino has changed hands numerous times since its first sale in 1998 for $300mn to Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali — an immensely attractive deal for the two men at a time when the brand wasn’t the hottest of properties, and an opportunity for Valentino to refresh and expand with the deeper pockets of its new owners. Valentino was sold again for $210mn to Italian textile group Marzotto in 2002, reportedly at the behest of HdPI board member Gianni Agnelli, who was agitated by the couple’s incredible personal expenditure. (Of that, Giammetti says: “Gianni Agnelli was a friend of ours; he was a great charmer and fond of light-hearted jokes. I don’t think he ever really paid much attention to our expenses or to his own.”)

Garavani and Giammetti stayed on through the changes in ownership, eventually retiring after British private equity group Permira bought the company in a deal that valued the company at €2.6bn in 2007 — just before the financial crisis hit. That led, in 2009, to a debt restructuring and a subsequent roll of the dice by Mayhoola.

The pair remain on good terms with the maison and current creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli. “I go to the shows,” says Giammetti, “I talk with Pierpaolo all the time. Valentino watches them on video — some he likes, some less so, but there is always an obvious respect for the original work there.”

Spending time away in New York taught us so much — it took us away from the aristocratic notions we were used to in Europe

While the designer offered a much-admired purity and restraint in a 1960s market dominated by futurism and psychedelia, it was Giammetti who knew how to market it. He was early in recognising the value of celebrity and of a signature colour. “We surrounded ourselves with interesting people, like Diana Vreeland,” he says. “When Jackie Kennedy was widowed and wore Valentino, she was a great ambassador. We realised it wasn’t just about the clothes, it was about projecting a lifestyle. Spending time away in New York in the 1960s and 1970s taught us so much — it took us away from the aristocratic notions we were used to in Europe. And we have made great friends — Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Hathaway are coming to celebrate the award in London, and they don’t need to be there. They are there for love.”

Before New York, there was — and still is — Rome. “One of the most important early moments for us was when our chief vendeuse announced they had rented their villa to Elizabeth Taylor,” he recalls. “She was in Italy making Cleopatra [in 1961]. We were going out with her, making peace between her and Richard Burton, and of course dressing her. When she wore a Valentino white dress at the premiere of Spartacus in 1960 and danced with Kirk Douglas, the photographs went around the world.”

Valentino hosted his first fashion show in 1962, which was a hit with buyers and socialites. But it was the all-white collection shown in 1968 that really propelled the name into uncharted territory, the same year Jackie Onassis wore Valentino for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis.

“We were selling a lot of clothes right from the beginning,” says Giammetti. “We also had the situation where the American department stores would pay to copy our dresses which was highly profitable.” Valentino launched ready-to-wear in 1970, and its first fragrance in 1978.

The next decade was driven by licences — around 70 in total, “right down to doing fabric toilet covers.” While Pierre Cardin rinsed out his credibility by lending his name to over 800 ever more ridiculous products, Valentino managed to survive the heyday of luxury licensing with its reputation less tarnished. “Valentino always had an eye on absolutely everything,” says Giammetti. “We could design fur and nightwear in the same studio as everything else, and for the Japanese market we had a separate designer.”

Garavani is now 91 and Giammetti 85, but both are still visible within the culture of Valentino. The transition to a new era seems successful so far. There’s been no undignified game of pass the parcel as there was with Halston and other once great houses after their sale.

Legacy remains top of mind — both of the fashion house that Mayhoola and Kering have taken possession of, and what they are now doing via the Valentino Garavani Foundation established in 2017. Although part of the focus of the Foundation is on the Valentino archive, most of it is on philanthropic causes, including a recent annex for a children’s hospital and a £200,000 award to the BFC, announced at the Fashion Awards, to support four emerging designers. The Foundation was also recently involved in the restoration of the Teatro Sociale in Garavani’s hometown of Voghera, which was renamed Teatro Valentino last month.

There’s still clearly an emotional investment in what appears on the runway. “I hope it’s regarded in the same way as Chanel is in 50 years,” says Giammetti. Meanwhile, the couple continue to enjoy the good life with their clique of celebrity friends (Victoria and David Beckham are among the inner circle who dine with them at home in London).

Ten years ago, Giammetti published a visual diary, Private, edited down from more than 50,000 photographs. Would he consider an update? “No, but I do like to post on Instagram, and everyone says I should write an autobiography. But if you do that, you have to be totally honest. And we all have things we want to hide.” Could he, I suggest, write it candidly for posthumous publication? He roars with laughter: “Absolutely not. I’d want to be around to enjoy the glory!”

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