Description
Valentino S.p.A. is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and part of the Valentino Fashion Group. Since October 2008, the creative director is Pierpaolo Piccioli, jointly with Maria Grazia Chiuri from 2008 to 2016. The company is headquartered in Milan, while the creative direction is in Rome.
History
Early history
Valentino was founded in 1960, when Garavani opened a fashion house on Via Condotti in Rome, Italy, with the backing of his father and his father's associate Giancarlo Giammetti.
Rise to popularity
Valentino's international debut took place in 1962 in Florence, the Italian fashion capital of the time. Valentino gained popularity in 1967 after releasing their “no colour” collection which consisted of white, beige, and ivory apparels. The collection did not use any psychedelic patterns, a commonly used design during this time. The V logo was also introduced and the years following the brand expanded to New York City and Ro The label staged the first Valentino menswear show at Milan Fashion Week in 1985.
Valentino has also, especially, designed wedding dresses for Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lopez, Courteney Cox, Sophie Hunter, Nicola Peltz and Princess Madeleine of Sweden.
HdP Group, 1998–2002
In 1998, Garavani and Giammetti sold the company for approximately $300 million to the Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali (HdP), an Italian conglomerate controlled, in part, by the late Gianni Agnelli, the head of Fiat. HdP put Valentino inside the same unit as the apparel producer GFT Net and alongside the sportswear manufacturer Fila.
In 2001, Opera – a fund controlled by the Rome jewelry firm Bulgari – started talks to buy Valentino, but pulled out after it was unable to agree on a price.
Marzotto Apparel, 2002–2007
In 2002, Valentino S.p.A., with revenues of more than $180 million, was sold by HdP to Marzotto Apparel, a Milan-based textile giant, for $210 million. It was rumored that HdP was displeased with Garavani's and Giammetti's personal expenses, a claim at which Giammetti has bristled.
The Marzotto family, which controlled Valentino through several holding companies, including Tidus Srl and PFC Srl, spun off its fashion assets in 2005 to create Valentino Fashion Group.
Permira, 2007–2012
From 2007, Valentino was controlled by private equity group Permira which had acquired the brand from the Marzotto Group for 2.6 billion euros ($3.5 billion). Later that year, Valentino and Giammetti announced that both would resign from the company in early 2008.
In 2008, Valentino opened its first boutique in China, at the Peninsula Palace Hotel in Beijing. By December 2009, hit by the financial crisis, Valentino had to restructure its debt.
Mayhoola, 2012–present
In 2012, Qatari aristocrats acquired Valentino for 700 million euros through an investment vehicle called Mayhoola for Investments S.P.C. Mayhoola bought up both Permira's stake and Marzotto's minority interest.
In 2020, the fashion house announced that it would no longer use alpaca wool and severed ties with Mallkini, the world's largest privately owned alpaca farm in Peru. The move followed revelations of animal abuse within the alpaca industry.
Under the leadership of its CEO Jacopo Venturini, Valentino went fur-free in 2022. It also decided to focus on the main Valentino line, ending the REDValentino one, aimed more at younger customers, with the fall-winter 2023–24 season.
In 2021, Valention adopted a co-ed model - the mixing of men's and women's shows - for its presentations. By 2023, it abandoned that model again and returned to Milan Fashion Week.
Kering purchased 30% of Valentino in July 2023, they intend to purchase the entire company by 2028.
