Very Valentino

Although repeatedly and emphatically denied by all concerned, everyone in fashion believes the rumours are anything but unfounded. As if he already knew the end was nigh, there were tears in Valentino's eyes when he appeared on the runway at the close of his most recent prt--porter showing in Paris - a permatanned pensioner, surrounded by models young enough to be his great-granddaughters. It had been a vintage presentation both in the sense of its incredible finesse and its subtle references to enduring glories of Valentino style, not least the finale of svelte evening gowns in poppy-red, a recurring Valentino signature which seems as much a part of fashion mythology as Chanel's little tweed jackets and YSL's "Le Smoking" tuxedo suit.

Like his own toasted caramel complexion, candy-floss coiffure and nuclear white dentistry, this show almost engendered the impression that Valentino remains undiminished despite the passage of years. The reality, of course, is different. For, even if Valentino confounds all expectations and delays his anticipated retirement, fashion is surely witnessing the end of an era.

It's not so much that Valentino has gone out of fashion: 45 years on, his work maintains both its cachet and commercial success. His prim, extremely ladylike daywear appeals to princesses and wealthy socialites, and a remarkable coterie of today's Hollywood A-list covet his sinuous evening gowns, which continue to score highly in approval ratings on Oscar night. For this year's ceremony, Valentino dressed Kate Winslet spendidly in mint-green crepe, Cameron Diaz controversially in white silk satin, and newcomer Anne Hathaway in ivory lace with huge black bows. His continuing fashion super-stardom and relevance to movie audiences made Valentino an obvious candidate for a cameo role in The Devil Wears Prada.

The timelessness of his work was splendidly articulated in the fashion hit scored by Julia Roberts in 2001 when she wore a vintage Valentino gown to accept the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich. Further proof came in 2003, when Jennifer Lopez favoured a reprise of a toga-style gown that Valentino had originally created for Jackie Kennedy in 1967.

Yet Valentino is truly fashion's last remaining old-timer, a survivor from the post-war glory days of Italian couture who subsequently made a glorious name for himself in Paris - and who, with a little help from his enormously talented business partner, turned that glorious name into a global luxury goods brand.

Giancarlo Giammetti abandoned his studies in architecture to become the architect of Valentino's extraordinary commercial success. Valentino is now the profitable and prestigious flagship marque of a business valued this very week at 2.6 billion (1.78bn). While Valentino's image and reputation may be built on haute couture, however, the inordinate personal wealth enjoyed by its principals reflects Giammetti's shrewd business focus on the development of high-end, factory-produced ready-to-wear and other licensed luxury goods - embellished, of course, with the prestigious Valentino name.

The two men's strengths have proved entirely complementary. As Michael Specter has astutely commented in the New Yorker, "Valentino knows nothing about money (apart from how to spend it), but Giammetti is one of the canniest businessmen in Europe."

Even so, things have changed, and the couture-dependent business model which has served Valentino and Giammetti so well now seems decidedly old hat. Haute-couture is like that elephant in the room that no one dares mention. Only a tiny number of women can contemplate the multi-thousand-Euro price-tags required for handmade one-of-a-kind designs, and those fabulous frocks seen at key red-carpet occasions are loans, not purchases. Admittedly, when Valentino does a wedding dress, the bill can run into hundreds of thousands, and Valentino certainly sells more haute-couture wedding (and other) dresses than most remaining couturiers. But haute couture is no cash cow, it only survives as an image-building loss-leader subsidised by sales in ready-to-wear fashion (in which an item costs hundreds rather than thousands of Euros), accessories and fragrances. The notion that the prime purpose of high fashion is flattery for the world's mega-rich simply doesn't fit with current fixations on celebrity, youth, and beauty.

Valentino's world is in every sense an anachronism - a throwback, if you will, not just to what fashion used to be about but also to how the rich and powerful used to live. Even the massively remunerated Oprah Winfrey was (almost) lost for words at the splendour of his personal lifestyle. "You ain't seen nothing like this, honey," she gasped on an edition of her show devoted to him. "No-one, and I mean no-one, lives better than Mr Valentino."

She may have been blinded by the extraordinary art treasures smothering the walls of his incredible homes: the Picassos, Warhols, Basquiats... or major works by Cy Twombly, de Kooning, Bacon, and Hirst. Perhaps she found her sea-legs on his ravishing yacht, the TM Blue One, characterised by its opulent furnishings and improbably handsome white-liveried crew. Possibly she swooned under the heady fragrance of Valentino's fabled rose gardens at his moated chteau near Paris. Doubtless she has experienced his fabled generosity as a host. That's one good reason why everyone who's anyone in fashion has cleared their diary to accommodate his celebratory black-tie dinner in Rome this summer. For Valentino could readily teach the Medici and imperial Romanov dynasties a thing or two about splendour.

Yet his work is characterised by elegance rather than excess. His beautifully crafted clothes are never challenging or shocking. Avoiding fleeting trends that Valentino neither likes nor understands, they are often discreetly imbued with exotic influences: Inca motifs, ideas drawn from visits to Russia and China, or bold graphic effects inspired by the Wiener Werksttte. Zebra, leopard and giraffe prints are almost as much Valentino's signature as that of Dolce & Gabbana, and there are always striking juxtapositions of black and white - plus, invariably, a dramatic showing of poppy-red. But, in his avoidance of dramatic departures and mind-blowing new directions, the ever so slightly uptight Valentino must be the only major fashion name currently exerting no discernible influence on high-street style.

As Colin Macdowell, the veteran British fashion commentator, once suggested to me, "Valentino's real genius is that he has never troubled to be original." It's not that he takes direction from other visionaries. Valentino simply has his own largely unchanging handwriting - a language of luxury and glamour inspired by beguiling silver-screen legends such as Carole Lombard, Hedy Lamarr, and Lana Turner, whose movies he saw while a cinema-obsessed teenager, growing up in the north of Italy.

He has never been interested in skirmishing with the avant garde, and he's sceptical of those who promote fashion as fantasy or art. Back in the 1960s, Courrges and Cardin made fashion headlines with miniskirts and "fly me to the moon" futurism. Not Valentino. Others fixated on youth and popular culture. Not Valentino. Even so, he engendered an extraordinary following that seemed to include all the right people.

Perhaps Valentino was in the right place at the right time. When he returned to Rome in 1959 after seven formative years in Paris, sketching for couturiers Jean Desses and Guy Laroche, Fellini had only just shot La Dolce Vita. The city was emerging as a favourite destination for moneyed Americans, and the era's international jet-set, with whom Valentino's definition of modern luxury struck an immediate chord. Following his haute-couture debut in 1962, his fanbase included Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Kennedy, whom - most memorably - he dressed in white lace for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis.

During the 1980s and early 90s, Versace did sexier, while just about everyone else did grittier or edgier. Yet Valentino was as much a defining figure of the supermodel era as any other designer. In homage, Linda Evangelista once famously dyed her hair red, and Valentino was Claudia Schiffer's first and only choice when it came to planning the dress she'd wear to wed Matthew Vaughn in 2002.

Valentino's great contemporaries, Hubert de Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent, have both hung up their scissors, and the houses that bear their names are now directed by young design mercenaries. Pierre Cardin long ago destroyed the prestige of his name by allowing it to be plastered over everything from saucepans to lavatory brushes; although still prolific, Karl Lagerfeld's reputation is based on work for Chanel and Fendi rather than more modest achievements under his own name.

Valentino therefore seems like the last man standing. For, having lost their founding figures, rival houses have either closed their loss-making couture ateliers or allowed them to become creative playpens for maverick young designers charged with courting publicity rather than a customer base.

"Fashion is not so complex," he once said. "It is about making a woman beautiful. That, and nothing else." Such flattery, as Oprah discovered, can fund one hell of a lifestyle. But now that rich women turn to surgeons, rather than gifted couturiers, to make the most of themselves, it's time for Valentino to make a dignified exit.

A CUT ABOVE THE REST

CATE BLANCHETT, in burgundy-sashed lemon taffeta (2005).

VALENTINO'S publicity team took a major gamble on this style-savvy actress's hopes of an Oscar for her role as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. In exchange for Blanchett's promise to wear this gown, they pledged she'd be the only actress in Valentino that evening. She got the Best Supporting Actress Oscar - so everyone triumphed.

JULIA ROBERTS, in vintage black and white silk faille (2001).

RARELY characterised for her superior fashion sense, Roberts was universally applauded for the stately vintage Valentino in which she accepted the Best Actress Oscar for her title role in the political drama Erin Brockovich. With her thick auburn mane tamed in an "up do", she had never looked more elegant.

SHARON STONE in Gap meets Val (1996).

A LAST-MINUTE panic resulted in Stone pulling together random elements from her own wardrobe for the Oscars in 1996, famously partnering a 22 turtleneck top from Gap with a Valentino black silk evening skirt: surely the only occasion when Valentino has skirmished with high-street style.

JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS, in white lace (1968).

FOR the former first lady's wedding to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968, Valentino created a dress that would prove almost as sensational as the marriage contract. Thirty-eight of his couture clients subsequently ordered the same design.

JENNIFER LOPEZ, in toga-style silk charmeuse (2001).

A GOWN originally created for Jackie Kennedy in 1967 was reprised for J-Lo to wear at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003. It articulated Valentino's mastery of timeless elegance.