Valentino Garavani - Interests

Interests

Both Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti are renowned for their extensive collection of art spread throughout their homes around the world including works by Picasso, Cy Twombly, Balthus, and Damien Hirst. In the 1980s they became close friends (and clients) of Thomas Ammann, with whom they shared their passion for Warhol and Twombly especially, "...it was Thomas Ammann who taught us to love art...".

Valentino and Giammetti's lifestyle has been considered flamboyant. John Fairchild, editor-at-large at Women's Wear Daily and W, told Vanity Fair,

Valentino and Giancarlo are the kings of high living. Every other designer looks and says, ‘How do they live the way they do?’ I don’t think they made the money that Valentino and Giancarlo did, because Giancarlo knows how to make money. If they did, they didn’t spend the money like Valentino. No other designer ever did. When the terrorism first started in Rome – the period when the Red Brigades were kidnapping people – Valentino was riding around in a bulletproof Mercedes. And do you know what color the Mercedes was? Red. My God, I thought, you must want to get blown up.

Valentino owns multiple villas and apartments around the world, all filled with art: Palazzo Mignanelli near the Spanish steps in Rome and a villa on the Via Appia Antica, a major historical landmark of Rome, and Chalet Gifferhorn in Gstaad, Switzerland. In France, is the Chateau de Wideville, a castle on 120 acres (0.49 km2) in Davron, about 30 minutes outside Paris, which Valentino bought in 1998 and had meticulously restored by the late Henri Samuel, the dean of French interior design. The castle had been previously decorated by the late Renzo Mongiardino, the greatest of the Italian decorators, who also worked on Valentino's Roman villa and Giammetti's Tuscan house. Built circa 1600, the castle was once the home of Claude de Bullion, the finance minister for Louis XIII, who slept at Wideville, according to a plaque in the castle, on January 22, 1634. During the reign of Louis XIV, Madame de la Valliere, one of his mistresses, lived at Wideville. Her bedroom, a mirrored-walled chapel with a 30-foot (9.1 m)-high ceiling, was converted into a bathroom. Valentino also has an apartment near the Frick Museum overlooking Central Park in New York City, as well as one of the largest private houses in London's Holland Park, a 19th-century mansion whose centerpiece is the grand salon, featuring five late Picassos. The breakfast room is lined with 200 Meissen porcelain plates, and the small salon has two Basquiat paintings and a painting by Damien Hirst. His villa on the cliffs of Capri has recently been sold.

Valentino also spends much time on T. M. Blue One, his 152-foot-long (46 m) yacht boasting a full-time staff of eleven, and a selection of art ranging from Picassos to Andy Warhols. He frequently visits Giancarlo Giammetti's residences: the penthouses in Via Condotti in Rome and on the Quai D'Orsay in Paris, or the country estate in Cetona, Tuscany.