If Valentino Garavani’s mother named him after the Italian casanova Rudolph Valentino – a silent film star nicknamed the “Latin lover” – then it was an act of pure nominative determinism. Here is a man – so obsessive in his quest for romance and beauty – that he discovered an entirely new shade of red. One with as much moxie as a slash of expensive lipstick, and as Machiavellian as a poisoned apple. Here is a man who seems to have been conferred glamour at birth: a gift which has expressed itself through monogrammed pillowcases, antique china collections and his adoring clients, whom, for almost five decades, he transformed into some of the beau monde’s most dignified protagonists. Among them Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Diana.

And so, this evening the British Fashion Council will be honouring Mr Valentino Garavani – the grand couturier – with an Outstanding Achievement Award at the Fashion Awards. It will be accepted by his partner in both life and business, Giancarlo Giammetti. The duo – and their pampered pugs – officially retired in 2008. “How could I single out just one chapter in a life spent together, creating our path step by step, milestone after milestone?,” Giammetti says, reflecting on the chance meeting that brought the couple together in a crowded Roman café in 1960. “It has been an extraordinary adventure, filled with memories. He is a person of few hidden facets, what you see is what he is: confident, disciplined, demanding of those around him and yet the most generous person, a dreamer.”

Pierpaolo Piccioli – who joined Valentino as creative director in 2008 – met his forebear in 1998, when Valentino visited the Fendi atelier in search of the man who originated the now-iconic Baguette bag. “More than his precise words I remember his attitude, and the atmosphere,” Piccioli says. “He was attentive and very acute. One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about Valentino is his firmness on all his decisions and choices. He’s never tried to please or conquer anyone. He’s always known what he wanted and he’s worked for it. And this is the best lesson he ever could have given me.” Having spent the past 15 years working through Valentino’s archive as the blueprint for his own, Piccioli says it’s the designer’s earlier collections that harbour his most essential characteristics. “The taste and the mastery which those pieces express feels so pure and spontaneous,” he explains.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the creations that preceded all the success and glamour,” Piccioli continues. “And if I had to choose one piece, it would be the Fiesta dress – the opening look of Valentino’s debut haute couture collection in 1959 – a tulle cocktail dress with handcrafted roses and a balloon skirt. It was unexpected, independent, and the first Rosso Valentino creation.” Piccioli reinterpreted that garment as part of his autumn/winter 2022 haute couture collection, staged in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. “Valentino’s perfectionism was absolute,” he says. “This was his most important teaching. I think Valentino has injected beauty into everything he has ever done: as if to say, ‘No matter what you do, make sure it’s beautiful’. Despite the natural differences in our perspectives, I think that it’s this desire for beauty – in all its meanings – which still drives Maison Valentino now.”

Below, we roll back the tape on some of our fondest memories of Valentino, as seen through the pages of British Vogue.