Many of fashion's great performers have benefited from great showrunners—those unsung partners who protect and guide from offstage.Many of fashion's great performers have benefited from great showrunners—those unsung partners who protect and guide from offstage. The line you hear about Giancarlo Giammetti, then, is that he allows Valentino to be Valentino. What that means exactly can be hard to explain. Suffice it to say that what began as a mutual attraction turned into one of the most fruitful collaborations the fashion world has ever seen. In helping to build up the legendary label, Giammetti also laid the groundwork for the industry as it is today. His relationship with his partner is as moving as it is complicated—or so it appears in Valentino: The Last Emperor, the acclaimed documentary that ushered Valentino vividly back into the spotlight in 2008, at a time when the pair behind the famous name might have retreated into relative (but impossibly opulent) obscurity. Now, with Private: Giancarlo Giammetti, Giammetti offers another peek into the Valentino world. Published by Assouline, the twelve-pound tome is a compendium of reflections and photos, nearly all of them snapped by Giammetti himself, of the long, enviable life he's led—one that has contained so many royals, Hollywood idols, and pharaonic fashion types that it more or less functions as an illustrated social history of the latter half of the twentieth century. Giammetti spoke with Style.com about fashion then and now, the glamorous "tribe" with which he's always traveled, and the "diva fits" he's come to take in stride.
POST: 2025-04-19