Valentino Garavani dies as Rome prepares a public farewell

In Rome, Valentino passed away at home, in the city that had made him a prince. His public farewell is being prepared, basilica and procession, like a final parade of stone and incense. Behind the silhouette, a life devoted to restrained beauty, to detail as liturgy. And the idea that a name, turned into an empire, remains above all a way of seeing the world.

The great Italian couturier Valentino Garavani), an icon of Italian haute couture, died on January 19, 2026, in Rome, at the age of 93. The Valentino Garavani Foundation and Giancarlo Giammetti announced a peaceful passing at the designer’s Roman home, “surrounded by the affection of his loved ones.” A public lying-in-state is scheduled for January 21 and 22, 2026 at PM23, at 23 Piazza Mignanelli. The funeral will take place on January 23, 2026 at 11:00 AM, at the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, before a burial announced at the Flaminio cemetery in Rome.

Funerals In Rome: The Ceremony And The Silence

Rome knows how to say goodbye without chatter. The chosen basilica, set against the Baths of Diocletian, extends Valentino’s very idea: a beauty that endures because it is constructed. The statement does not specify the cause of death. This discretion, in a time that demands explanations, resembles a final clean cut.

The two days of lying-in-state at PM23 also say something about his era. This venue, located at 23 Piazza Mignanelli, near the Spanish Steps, was conceived as a cultural jewel box. The choice is not merely practical. It expresses an ambition: to turn fashion from mere clothing into memory. Moreover, it seeks to inscribe a name into the city. It’s like signing the inside of a jacket.

Tributes to Valentino poured in. The world of fashion and luxury remembered a man who gave Made in Italy a global aura. In this Europe of brands, where Bernard Arnault at the head of LVMH and François-Henri Pinault atop Kering embody industrial power, Valentino held a different, almost sacerdotal place. The National Chamber of Italian Fashion, chaired by Carlo Capasa, joined the farewell.

The Young Man Who Wanted The Sublime

Born in 1932 in Voghera, Valentino left early for Paris. There he learned workshop discipline, the art of line, the respect for time. He later returned and chose Rome. Not Milan, the capital of business and industrial pace. Rome, the city that knows how to make style a civilization.

In 1960, he founded his house, then met Giancarlo Giammetti, companion and partner. This meeting shaped everything. Valentino thought like a creator. Giammetti thought like a builder. One designed, the other protected. Together they set up a durable machine, rare in a field where brilliance often comes at the cost of instability.

Behind the emperor of red, a man who, over the years, tightened the circle and chose discretion. The presence of Giancarlo Giammetti, companion and partner, held the house like a faithful frame. As the brand became an empire, Valentino cultivated Roman withdrawal, away from the noise of trends. This tension between public splendor and protected intimacy runs through a life like an invisible seam.
Behind the emperor of red, a man who, over the years, tightened the circle and chose discretion. The presence of Giancarlo Giammetti, companion and partner, held the house like a faithful frame. As the brand became an empire, Valentino cultivated Roman withdrawal, away from the noise of trends. This tension between public splendor and protected intimacy runs through a life like an invisible seam.

In the atelier, Valentino refused approximation. The drape must appear natural precisely because it is not. The hem must disappear. The cut must flatter without flattery. the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor showed this laboratory of glamour: meticulous gestures, a low hum of tension, and the certainty that elegance is not a mood but a craft.

When he decided to retire, in 2007 and then officially in January 2008, he did it as he lived: as a stage director. The last show, in the memory of the guests, ended on a red finale. It was as if the couturier closed his century on his color. This voluntary departure, rare in an industry that clings on, reinforced the legend: Valentino not only knew how to create, he knew how to leave the stage.

Red, The Stars, And The Image

Valentino has often been summed up as the Valentino red. The shortcut is not wrong. It signals a ceremonial color, a contained warmth, a desire that stands upright. But the true signature was elsewhere: in his understanding of image. Valentino knew that couture is fully realized only when it meets light, a setting, an apparition.

Cannes, the flashes, the red carpets, and that unmistakable fact that a Valentino here with Elizabeth Hurley creates a movie moment. The couturier knew that couture is an image, a story, a framed light meant to last. From the sixties with Jackie Kennedy to today, he imposed a European glamour that crosses Hollywood and Paris. A dress does not just clothe; it reassures, it tells a story, it places a person in the world.
Cannes, the flashes, the red carpets, and that unmistakable fact that a Valentino here with Elizabeth Hurley creates a movie moment. The couturier knew that couture is an image, a story, a framed light meant to last. From the sixties with Jackie Kennedy to today, he imposed a European glamour that crosses Hollywood and Paris. A dress does not just clothe; it reassures, it tells a story, it places a person in the world.

In the 1960s, Rome pulsed to the rhythm of Cinecittà. Valentino, near the Spanish Steps, became a couturier of the era as much as of bodies. The international shift sharpened with Jacqueline Kennedy, then with a long list of celebrities. He did not merely clothe. He created a silhouette that served as a scenario, whose trace remains. Even his brief cameo in The Devil Wears Prada reminds us that some names move from the salon into common culture.

One then measures what he changed. Before him, Italian couture was admired but often seen as peripheral to Paris. Valentino moved the center. He conferred on Rome a couture authority, classical and spectacular. Thus, it could travel to New York and Hollywood without losing its accent.

The Discipline Of Beauty

Valentino defended elegance as a rule. In a century that saw fashion accelerate, flail, and theorize, he kept a steady course. His classicism was never an absence of ideas. It was a fidelity to cut.

His ateliers operated like a chapel. People spoke softly. They adjusted. They remade. Then comes the evidence, that miracle of haute couture: creating the impression that everything is simple.

Under the black, the precision of the line, the cut that does not cheat, the fall that seems natural. In the atelier, silence works; pieces are redone, corrected, until that clarity that appears simple. Valentino championed a disciplined, aristocratic elegance defined by the time and attention it demands. A polished beauty, never rushed, that resists trends as well as theatrics.
Under the black, the precision of the line, the cut that does not cheat, the fall that seems natural. In the atelier, silence works; pieces are redone, corrected, until that clarity that appears simple. Valentino championed a disciplined, aristocratic elegance defined by the time and attention it demands. A polished beauty, never rushed, that resists trends as well as theatrics.

This exacting standard had a downside: it could seem ruthless. Valentino never claimed to be a revolutionary. He preferred the authority of beauty to the intoxication of novelty. He loved splendor but hated showiness. He collected art but distrusted overly conceptual fashion. These contradictions, far from weakening him, made him Roman.

A Proper Name Turned Empire

The house of Valentino, now a global company, continues the empire. The brand remains controlled by principal shareholder Mayhoola, alongside Kering, which has held 30% of the capital since 2023. An amended agreement in September 2025 provides that the structure should not change until at least 2028. This reality does not take away from the couturier. It only reminds that behind an empire there was first an eye, a hand, an obstinacy.

From Rome to the capitals of luxury, the Valentino brand became a strong currency of a European imagination. The proper name turned into a global architecture, between cultural heritage and economic power. Beyond the creator, an empire survives, transforms, and tries to remain faithful to its promise of beauty. Valentino Garavani’s passing, reduced to his first name, recalls the fragile link between atelier, market, and memory.
From Rome to the capitals of luxury, the Valentino brand became a strong currency of a European imagination. The proper name turned into a global architecture, between cultural heritage and economic power. Beyond the creator, an empire survives, transforms, and tries to remain faithful to its promise of beauty. Valentino Garavani’s passing, reduced to his first name, recalls the fragile link between atelier, market, and memory.

Valentino felt that fragile link early. He sold, he transmitted, he left the stage. He could have clung to it. He chose to depart masterfully after a final salute in the mid-2000s. Thus, he left the house to continue without him.

Tribute To Valentino: The Legacy, Without Imitation

Valentino had left the catwalks long ago. The house continues, now under the artistic direction of Alessandro Michele, appointed in March 2024. The symbol is clear: remain in Rome, where it all began, but without fetishism. The legacy is not repeated. It is translated.

The Foundation created with Giammetti and its PM23 continues that gesture: moving couture toward art, memory, and transmission. On January 23, 2026, eyes will lift in the basilica. And perhaps a flash of red, in each person’s imagination, will still do its work. Not to make a show. To recall that a certain luxury knew how to speak softly.

A spectacle conceived like a museum in motion, faithful to the taste for demanding beauty and the slowness of gesture. The camera lingers on material and movement, where perfection suddenly seems simple. A way to see, live, a successful fashion show that speaks to the living heritage of a house born of Garavani and Giammetti.

This article was written by Pierre-Antoine Tsady.