On Sept. 4, 2007, the fashion world shook. Valentino Garavani announced his retirement from his career as an Italian haute couturier. This day signaled the end of the era of truly great fashion designers, and director Matt Tyrnauer was there to beautifully capture it all on film.
“Valentino: The Last Emperor” is a documentary that follows Valentino through his final season as a designer. The idea of Valentino the man has always held a certain aspect of mystery, and this movie pulls back the thick curtain concealing his life to give the audience a better understanding of who he really is as a person. Valentino has ruled the industry with his incredible gowns for 45 years, and has never before been exposed to this extent.
“Everything is too much. Everything is over the top,” Tyrnauer said about Valentino. “He lives larger than anyone else in the world, and that’s really one of the most remarkable things about him.”
The film trails Valentino and his entourage of six pugs from the yacht, to the mansion, to the private plane. Excess is a reoccurring theme in both the movie and in Valentino’s everyday life. One clip shows a yard worker spray-painting a bit of dirt green, to match the grass. His world is visually perfect, and kept that way by hundreds of employees.
Tyrnauer also reveals Valentino’s relationship with Giancarlo Giammetti, something that was not easy to accomplish. The two have been inseparable for almost half a century. Giammetti is Valentino’s rock, employee, lover and constant companion.
“To be with Valentino, you need a lot of patience,” said Giammetti when asked how he deals with Valentino’s incessant demands. He frequently changes his mind on the collection, the runway décor, or the beading of a dress without a moment’s notice, and everyone around him is expected to react instantly. He creates a very hectic environment in which only the best seamstresses, publicists, stylist and photographers can survive.
Valentino has also been known to keep his life very private, and gets frustrated with the presence of the cameras at a few points in the film.
“He’s the ultimate perfectionist,” Tyrnauer said. “The movie shows Valentino as a difficult perfectionist, a kind of genius. But you don’t get to be a genius without being kind of high maintenance.”
After producing the number one documentary of the year, Tyranuer is ready to take on his next project. “I’m looking at a lot of different future projects. But I think I’m going to retire from fashion,” Tyrnauer said.
There is no better way to start and end a directorial career in fashion than with Valentino. The designer, like this film, arrives second to none.
“Valentino: The Last Emperor” showed at the Angelika Theater for three months. Dallas proved to be the biggest market in the world for the film, which raked in unprecedented amounts of profit for a film of its kind. The DVD was released on Sept 8, just before the start of Fashion Week, and is now available atvalentinomovie.com.
