🎙️ Giambattista Valli
Giambattista Valli has done something not many of his peers have been able to accomplish. He launched his own fashion label and turned it into a global success. The last year has brought about some major changes in Valli’s professional life. He ended his decade long collaboration with Moncler and he decided to sell a minority stake in his company to Artemis, the investment arm of Kering’s founding Pinault family. Moves that show that Valli is more dedicated than ever to making his feminine, female friendly fashion a staple of the industry for generations to come.
Giambattista Valli
I have a lot of questions for you Giamba, but before I get into all that I have always wanted to know the story of the pearls. How did a string of pearls necklace become your signature?
It came casually. Actually, I used to go often to India. I was over there and there was this piece with pearls. They were part of a big Mahajan neckless. It was a piece of jewelry made for men and I loved it. This friend, that is a jewelry designer, says to me “why don’t you wear pearls, this a jewelry for men” and I said that is a good idea and I put it on and it became my lucky charm and my signature. It’s my thing and I love it because it means I can skip wearing a tie, which look really awful on me, pearls look much better.
One of the things I loved about your story is, unlike a lot of young designers today that kind of just launch their brands right away, you really took the time to learn from some amazing designers. What did you take away from the time with Roberto Capucci, the one that really formed you as designer when you launched your own label?
I think this is what I really can give as a suggestion to young designers, it is very important to experiment and to get the knowledge. I would say it is really important to train before you jump by yourself. I was very lucky to cross big masters in my life. Roberto Capucci was like my first love, somebody I can’t forget and I am never going to forget. He was the most human experience I had. I learnt from him to be respectful with women. He used to tell me “Giambattista never forget about women, they can potentially be mothers so you have to be respectful”, this was very beautiful and I still have it on my mind. And he was somebody that was working in such of free way with volume, shapes and colors. It was fantastic!
The moment I worked for Fendi with Karl Lagerfeld was a really international experience with all the top model of runways of the moment, the glamorousness of it. Later, I arrived in Paris, a place I was not expected to land. When I arrived, I had everything to learn. I had a real creative evolution through the French culture. I had to conquer it because it was something far from my culture. I had to learn the ABC of all the characters, and all the process. Also, I discovered what we call luxury. Even if today it does not mean anymore what it used to mean, it is a little bit overused or abused. I prefer the word excellence, it is more appropriated for me right now and it is what I am passionate and obsessed by. I have seen this excellence of making art in this clothes, the art of making this garment, the art of making these colors, this fabric, this embroidery, flowers, patterns, whatever I could find around this atelier.
Then you spent time at Emanuel Ungaro, training with the founder and then taking over when he retired.
Yes, and when left Ungaro to start my own company. I make the jump with “the net” because I had all this important previous experience with Ungaro with Fendi and Cappuci. I did the good and bad, I had the training make the jump all by myself.
Looking back at that time there were lot of houses and designers that were going to famous houses instead of starting their own label. But you did the opposite, you turned down the job of artistic director at Valentino and focused on your company.
At that time, I just wanted to express myself. It was like being a translator on the movie and being an actor on your movie. So I want to be acting my movie and I want to be coherent with my ideas. Of course any personal idea is going to be reinterpreted in another house. But I had like a very strong idea of these women, about their independence and the fact that they are not belonging to anybody, not even fashion.
It’s true that one of the thing that people talk about with you is that you do have a diehard group of women who have been faithful to you since the beginning. How do you generate such a fanatic loyalty to your brand?
Honestly, I enjoy doing my job and I want to show them all the happiness, that I am totally in love with them and cannot live without them. This group of girls, they are my biggest inspiration. When I am drawing I am asking myself a lot of questions, it is like a real way to look, if it works or not in the real world Sometimes in other fashion houses, they miss the point of the final reality of women. Of course, we want to be on museum on day, but right now I just want to be part of these women’s lives.
You are one of the few designers that are doing couture. How do you justify working in a field that is only open to a very small group of clients?
I have the youngest customers of couture among the houses that do couture. I started Valli in 2005 and it was few years after the September 11th. There were all the conflicts, the US market was really bad. But I came out with something so different and unique, that everybody jumped onto it. When I putted out the Haute Couture, it was the moment that everybody was saying Haute Couture was dead, that luxury does not work anymore. So I came out with the idea of the Haute Couture and you know it is the business that generates the most traffic during the Fashion Weeks in Paris. Today, because I design couture I am able to reach something else creatively. There is the exclusivity, the excellence and it is a privilege to have that kind of excellence and very few people have the opportunity to design couture.
You spent ten years at Moncler designing the Gamme Rouge collection on top of your ready-to-wear and your couture line. That collaboration recently ended so what is it like now that you no longer have to deal with those extra designer deadlines?
You know I am very proud of what I accomplished at Moncler. I built the women wardrobe, which did not exist at all at that time. I brought these babies to a massive success. Yesterday, I had dinner with Hilary Swank, she was next to me and says “Oh, do you remember you invited me to your first Moncler show, I didn’t even know what it was was and look where it is now.”
Was that the one underneath the Opera, with the horses?
No, it was even before, at the Musée Bourdelle. I invited Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, they were the hottest it-girl at the moment and also Rihanna, she is my dear friend.
With Moncler, I did not want create a sports line like Nike or what Adidas do. I wanted to make something women can use for their daily life and go to the office or use during the week-end. Something that they can dressed up. But then it came to a point when I wanted to do a sports line for Giambattista Valli, the story had to change and I had to start a new chapter.
I know that Salma Hayek is a huge fan of you. And her husband’s family, the Pinault family, invested in your company last year. How that all happened? What made you decide you wanted have a minority investor, did Salma convince you?
Actually it comes mostly from François Pinault. He had a strong interest in the label. When we met, it was like meeting an old friend, we were speaking the same language. This is extremely rare; it is so rare to find such a comprehension of the language between two people, such an education, cultural vision and lifestyle. I have known Selma for many years, I used to dress her during my time at Ungaro and she was a huge fan and great ambassador of Ungaro.
I did the first 12 years of my business solo. But I wanted to evolved. I built up the DNA, the meaning, the silhouette, the fan group of women and what Giambattista Valli is today in an independent and coherent way. Now, it is nice to have an investor that believes in you, is involved and is supportive of growing your company.
So where will you be in five years? Is that the sports aspects now that you are focused on?
No, that is just a little sector. Today, you must have items that go from high heels to sneakers, Haute Couture to joggings, cashmere embroidery to sweaters. You must create a wardrobe universe.
Right now the images of brand you see are the images of the fashion shows, the images of the celebrities that just enjoy wearing my dresses. These are people that have built a very honest relationship with the house. They do not feel abuse or badly use by me. I am respectful and respect their privacy, when they ask for a dress for an important moment it is top secret. When they come to me, they feel comfortable.
So your focus now is to take more control of the narrative of the house across different platforms of communication?
I had fragments of collections, it is very nice but you need to express your own vision, your entire vision. You have to build up your temple cathedral, your maison to that people can get it. And then, I am going to start opening stores to reinforce the brand’s message. Actually today, I just published on Instagram the opening of a second boutique in Seoul. This month, we are going to open our first boutique in London, Sloane Street. In two weeks in Beijing and in July in Doha.
Unlike some others big successful brands, you have a continuality of femininity throughout your collections over the years. So that if a woman bought something from your fourth collection or from your most recent collection, nothing feels dated.
Franca Sozzani used to say this to me to. She used to tell me that she loves my things, when she putted them in her wardrobe, she rediscovered them and never know from what collections they belong. She was saying this all the time and add “the power is that I can be dress in Giambattista Valli and my personality is intact”. I hate the idea of billboard women and the idea being a slave to fashion trends. It might look easy to stay true to your personal vision of fashion but it is difficult to always evolve and yet continue to be consistent at the same time.
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