Valentino: The Last Emperor

The documentary follows Valentino Garavani through his last two years. Fittings in the atelier, shows in Rome, the enormous production being built for the forty-fifth anniversary. The company has changed hands; the owners are other people now and fashion is a different business. Nobody is looking at the seamstresses who work by hand. At the centre of the film sits its real subject: Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti, his business partner and companion of fifty years. They quarrel, they make up, they finish each other's sentences. Matt Tyrnauer directs; ninety-six minutes. The crew stayed with the two of them for two years. Valentino retired in 2008, and the film was shot across that farewell, recording the close of an era.