Fashion finale

Valentino: The Last Emperor is a mesmerizing
portrait of an haute couture icon

CHIC FLICK: Valentino: The Last Emperor

by SACHA JACKSON

It seems counterintuitive to release a film about the opulent and luxurious life of a man, Valentino Garavani, whose dresses sell for upwards of $50,000, in the midst of a global recession. But Valentino: The Last Emperor, which follows the Italian fashion designer as he approaches his 45th anniversary and prepares what will ultimately be his last collection, is just as much a portrait of the changing industry as it is of the couturier himself.

Valentino retired from fashion in 2008, just three months after the doc completed shooting, amid pressure to create more affordable garments and having lost financial control of the company he and business partner Giancarlo Giammetti founded in 1962. First-time director Matt Tyrnauer helms the film, which, in contrast to other fashion documentaries, avoids talking-head syndrome with designers espousing views on their own genius—ahem, Lagerfeld—instead taking a more traditional fly-on-the-wall stance.

A journalist by trade, Tyrnauer first met Valentino and Giammetti in 2004 when he profiled the designer for Vanity Fair, and it’s this reporter-subject relationship that can be credited for the documentary’s success. There’s a journalist vs. image dynamic at work here, as well as an obvious affection for the relationship between these two men that provides us with an objective yet somehow endearing look at one of the world’s most guarded personalities.

Valentino’s been playing a character his entire career, and this film goes a ways in breaking from that image to show him in a rarely seen light (though his diva qualities are never far off). Funny and cutting, the back-and-forth witticisms between him and Giammetti provide some of the film’s most entertaining moments. At one point, having seen Giammetti’s designs for a desert-themed catwalk, he quips: “It looks like Marilyn Monroe is going to come out, with Jack Lemmon running after.” Giammetti promptly tells Valentino to pull in his stomach.

Even if you’re not wooed by the high fashion, the over-the-top lifestyle (they literally turn the Coliseum in Rome red in his honour), one that is quickly dying, is mesmerizing. Ultimately though, it’s the relationship between these two men that brings a vulnerability to the film and gives us some surprisingly moving moments.

VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR
OPENS THIS FRIDAY, JULY 10