Valentino Garavani’s Virtual Museum

Legendary Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani’s life works are now available on line in a virtual museum. This is where couture is coming to a computer near you. The museum houses the archives of Valentino’s creations and iconic dresses over the last 49 years.

The museum is available for free desktop download with just one click of your computer mouse and you can discover the history of a particular dress. For example who wore it, where and when. Five thousand documents, photos, and 190 videos are available in this virtual museum.

You can expect to see a lot of top models behind the scenes at Valentino fashion shows, drawings of Valentino’s designs, various advertising campaigns, other press and Hollywood actors on the Red Carpet at various events such as The Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and other movie premiers. Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Hathaway are just to name a few of the faces you’ll see wear Valentino gowns.

Valentino has even designed costumes for the Opera and the Ballet. The rose petal pink gowns he designed for the New Year’s Concert from the Staatsoper in Vienna in 2010 are more than something out of a couture fairytale. And European Royalty Princess Maxima of Holland glided down the aisle for her wedding in a Valentino design.

Valentino’s long time business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, created this first of its kind on line virtual fashion museum. He says Valentino has kept an organized archive system since the 1970’s but to build an actual museum in this day and age takes a lot of funding and time.

The virtual museum is designed and inspired by the architecture of Rome, Italy. Animated galleries show 360 degrees of a particular dress, its stitching, beaded details and lines.  Giancarlo says he developed the virtual museum to elaborate on Valentino’s legacy, make the archives available for fashion design students, as well as the boarder public who have become more aware of Valentino since the 2008 release of the documentary about him “Valentino: The Last Emperor”. Valentino says the most iconic pieces he has designed are: Jacqueline Kenney Onassis’s wedding dress, the Oscar dress Julia Roberts wore that started the “Vintage Mania”, and the White Collection coat with gold V’s.

Valentino details his vision on creating couture in a video interview. Valentino gives two simple rules for women on the go. He says women do not have time or want to change their clothing three times a day and that a classic cut fit blazer can go a long way. It can be worn with jeans to drop the kids off at school, head into the office for work and join friends at lunch. For evening he says you really one need that little black dress for dining out and parties. Now all you need to do is take a look for yourself.

Just click on the link below and enjoy your “walk” through history, elegance and glamour.

valentino-garavani-archieves.org