Remembering Valentino: Cloth, Colour and a Couture Legacy

Valentino Garavani, 1932 - 2026

Valentino Garavani’s passing invites a moment of reflection on a body of work that was as intellectually rigorous as it was visually refined. While his name is often synonymous with elegance and glamour, his legacy lies in a sustained and thoughtful engagement with textiles. Over more than six decades, Valentino approached couture as a material practice, one grounded in an acute understanding of cloth, proportion and process. Fabric was never subordinate to form; instead, it shaped the very logic of the garment. Silks, velvets, chiffons and lace were chosen for their structural and expressive qualities, then realised through the discipline of the atelier, where hand-finishing and couture techniques articulated each piece.

In remembering Valentino’s legacy, rosso Valentino offers a particularly telling lens. More than a signature colour, red functioned as a textile enquiry, its emotional depth and luminosity shifting according to fibre, weave and weight. Colour, in Valentino’s work, was embodied by cloth rather than applied to it.

Equally central was the culture of making that underpinned the house. The often-unseen labour of cutters, embroiderers and seamstresses sustained a lineage of craftsmanship that remains increasingly rare today. Valentino’s couture endures as an argument for material intelligence, slowness and precision.

In today's post, we revisit his legacy through an article from Selvedge Issue 97, Red, reflecting on Valentino’s lasting contribution to fashion as a dialogue between colour, cloth and craft.

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Credits

Article: 

Words by Kate Cavendish

Illustrations by Paula sanz Caballero

Lead Image: Valentino Garavani, Getty Images.