Valentino

"Listing the number of brands that have ended up in French hands becomes a painful count for those who care about the entrepreneurial future of our country: Gucci, Brioni, Pomellato, and Bottega Veneta are owned by Kering di François Pinault, the archrival of Arnault, who recently also targeted Valentino, acquiring 30% with the option to buy the rest of the shares in the coming years. Bulgari, Loro Piana, Fendi, Acqua di Parma, Emilio Pucci are the Italian brands in the LVMH portfolio, which recently also bought a stake in the holding company of Remo Ruffini that controls Moncler."

""Milan to live, to dream, to enjoy. This Milan… to drink," the Amaro Ramazzotti commercial captures the metropolis that conquers the world. Milan is the place to be to ride the hedonistic Eighties, those years in which Bettino Craxi and Silvio Berlusconi make the rules. The fashion designers – a term that virtually did not exist until the Seventies – become the stars of the decade; fashion week is the epicenter of a changing world. Credit goes to the three greats, nicknamed "the three G's": Giorgio Armani, Gianfranco Ferré, and Gianni Versace, the latter a visionary young man from Calabria and, a little later, the inventor of an international phenomenon, the supermodels. In 1986, President of the Republic Francesco Cossiga opens the doors of the Quirinal Palace to a large reception in honor of seven of the major Italian designers: Armani, Versace, Ferré, Valentino, Fendi, Krizia, and Ferragamo, and confers various honours on them. The awardees are among the protagonists of the made in Italy that has made fashion the second sector of the Italian economy, after tourism. "King George" Armani is the absolute protagonist of the phenomenon. Together with his partner Sergio Galeotti, he decides in 1975 to establish his own brand. He achieves global success in a very short time."

"The signature forcefully enters into the Agordo factory. And this is just the first step. In the following years, Luxottica strings together a series of agreements to expand its portfolio: Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, and then Emporio Armani as well."

"I still remember Valentino, in his Rome atelier, explaining to me what it meant for him that one of his multimillionaire clients would comment that a suit of his remained immaculate for three or four years and that she kept it in the back of her closet, like something of great value, even for her daughters. And who doesn't take care with a tenderness verging on veneration for that Pertegaz suit, and let's not even mention if it's a Balenciaga, that belonged to a grandmother or mother-in-law and which is perfect and timeless?"