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Valentino, Forever Roman

February 12, 2026

Valentino, Forever Roman

The iconic designer and his love story with Rome

Valentino Garavani at the opening of the retrospective dedicated to him at the Ara Pacis in Rome. Eric VANDEVILLE/Getty Images

“I don’t work in Rome, I am Rome.” Few statements capture the essence of Valentino Garavani’s relationship with the Eternal City as precisely as this one. More than a quote, it was a worldview – one that defined how deeply Rome shaped his identity, his work, and his sense of purpose.

The designer, who passed away on 19 January 2026, shared a lifelong love story with Rome defined not only by intellectual and cultural affinity, but also by a shared sense of stewardship. Valentino was not Roman by birth, but Roman by conviction.

And so, to honour the last true Roman emperor, it feels fitting to trace his enduring, uncomplicated bond with the place he called home for almost his entire life.

A Roman By Choice

Though born in Voghera, Lombardy, Valentino became Roman by choice. After formative years between Milan and Paris, where he studied at the École de la Chambre Syndicale and worked for Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche, he picked Rome to establish his own couture house, moving here in 1959 and opening his first atelier on Via Dei Condotti. He was drawn to the city’s architecture, its instinctive sense of proportion, and its coexistence of sacredness and sensuality. Later on, those very qualities would guide his entire approach to design.

Maison Valentino, as it is known today, was founded in 1960, when the designer entered in a partnership – both personal and creative – with entrepreneur Giancarlo Giammetti. The relationship became one of the most enduring in fashion history, with Giammetti taking on the responsibility of structure and strategy, and Valentino the role of sartorial genius. Together, they built not just a brand, but a Roman institution.

Over the decades, Valentino became inseparable from the city’s identity. A central figure during Rome’s Dolce Vita years, he moved through via Veneto and international salons with quiet authority. Photographed alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, heads of state and popes, he remained, above all, a gentleman. His language of beauty resisted trends, favouring instead a vision of elegance grounded in discipline and an understanding of fashion as something closer to architecture than spectacle.

The designer Valentino Garavani with actress Sophia Loren, at a Valentino party, at the Park Avenue Armory, New York, New York, 1992. (Photo by Rose Hartman/Getty Images)

As his reputation grew, so did the scale – and privacy – of his Roman life. His early base in the city, an apartment marked by theatrical flair and layered interiors, eventually gave way to a more secluded retreat. In 1972, Valentino purchased his historic villa along the Via Appia Antica, choosing one of Rome’s most storied landscapes as a place of refuge. Removed from public display, it was a setting where history, nature, and cultivated taste reflected the same pursuit of permanence that defined his work.

Palazzo Mignanelli, Fashion Network

That sensibility also moulded the evolution of the Maison. When the atelier moved from Via dei Condotti to Palazzo Mignanelli in Piazza Mignanelli in 1967, the palazzo became the creative and operational core of the brand, housing both the design studios and haute couture ateliers. More than a headquarters, it cemented Valentino’s bond with Rome’s historic centre. 

Rome also became the stage for Valentino’s most meaningful public gestures. In 2007, for his farewell to the runway, he achieved what no one before him had: a fashion show along Via dei Fori Imperiali. Celebrating 45 years of career, he returned haute couture to the monumental heart of the city, transforming ancient ruins into a contemporary procession. It was a moment of extraordinary symbolic power: Valentino as a modern emperor, reclaiming Rome as living culture.

Those celebrations extended into what the press affectionately dubbed the “Valentiniadi”: three days of exhibitions, gala dinners, and tributes that brought together fashion, cinema, politics, and art. A monumental retrospective at the Ara Pacis showcased over 300 dresses, reaffirming that Valentino’s work belonged not just on runways, but in museums and collective memory.

In July 2022, under creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, Maison Valentino returned to Rome with a striking haute couture show that traced a 600-metre runway from Piazza Mignanelli through Piazza di Spagna and up the steps of Trinità dei Monti. Titled The Beginning, the event celebrated both the city’s enduring beauty and the brand’s deep roots in Rome’s urban and cultural fabric. That same year, the Maison also supported the planting of two new palm trees in Piazza di Spagna, replacing those damaged in recent years – another quiet act of devotion to the city.

The ultimate expression of Valentino’s love for Rome, however, may be the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti, which opened its doors to the public on 25 May 2025 in Piazza Mignanelli. Conceived to preserve, study, and share the empire the two built together, the foundation embodies their commitment to fashion, a deep passion for art, and meaningful engagement with philanthropy.

Located alongside the historic halls of the Valentino atelier, the space occupies a former Vatican school and printing house once linked to Propaganda Fide. It is, in a way, more than an archive: it stands as a final gesture of restitution to Rome, transforming a private legacy into a public resource, and ensuring that the dialogue between Valentino, the city, and beauty itself continues.

Valentino’s story is inseparable from Rome’s. We like to think the Eternal City understood him instinctively. And he, in turn, understood Rome back. 

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