Before his death on Monday at age 93, Valentino Garavani spent decades dressing stars like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway and Gwyneth Paltrow.
The Italian designer was a red carpet maestro, creating dazzling gowns for the Academy Awards, Met Gala and beyond — as well as couture wedding gowns for some of the world’s most famous women.
Many of the most memorable looks featured “Valentino red,” the designer’s signature color introduced in his first collection in 1959. The poppy-red hue became so recognizable that Pantone even created an official color designation for it.
Hathaway, whom Garavani once told Page Six was “like [his] daughter,” was among his most devoted fans. He came out of retirement to design a custom wedding dress for the star in 2012 — an ivory silk tulle gown with a hand-painted pink train.
Even as Valentino (the fashion house) has changed hands through several creative directors since the founder’s 2008 retirement, Hathaway has remained a steadfast fan of Garavani’s work, wearing a red dress from the designer’s Fall 2003 Haute Couture collection to a WWD event in October and a 2002 gown to the 2011 Oscars red carpet.
Paltrow likewise dug deep into Valentino’s archives to present at the 2019 Emmy Awards, wearing a 1963 design with floor-sweeping organza sleeves. Paltrow’s stylist, Elizabeth Saltzman, called the look “a fun way to put our nod towards wearing your clothes more than once, to honor a very dear friend, and to look like a billion dollar babe!”
Below, see some of the designer’s most iconic looks through the decades.
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