VALENTINO'S DEATH MARKS THE END OF AN ERA

Yesterday, January 19, 2026, with the passing of Valentino, an era has come to an end. It marks the conclusion of the global triumph of "Made in Italy" fashion. This year also commemorates the 40th anniversary of a historic date for the fashion system: October 10, 1986, when President Francesco Cossiga summoned the protagonists of what would be defined as the "Golden Age" of Made in Italy to the Quirinale, conferring upon them the honor of Commanders of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

This was the official investiture of an economic and cultural revolution.

These honors were not mere medals, but political and symbolic instruments: they definitively sanctioned fashion as a strategic national industry, equating it in terms of economic weight, employment, and international prestige to the steel or automotive sectors.

These masters did not just create garments; they constructed the global identity of Made in Italy, transforming Milan into the world capital of prêt-à-porter. While united by artisanal excellence, they were profoundly different in vision, language, and philosophy.

Giorgio Armani, the King of Minimalism, revolutionized the way we dress by eliminating the superfluous. His mission was to provide comfort and authority to a new ruling class, both male and female. Through the deconstructed jacket, he removed shoulder pads and rigid linings, making the suit as fluid as a shirt. He invented greige, a chromatic synthesis of gray and beige, the symbol of a whispered elegance that never needs to shout. His essence is captured in his own words: "Elegance is not about being noticed, but about being remembered".

Gianni Versace represented excess and "Glamour Rock". If Armani was subtraction, Versace was addition. He brought pop culture, sexuality, rock 'n' roll, and the Baroque to the runway, transforming fashion into a global spectacle. His drive for innovation led him to experiment with unprecedented materials like Oroton (metallic mesh), iconic Medusa and Greek fret prints, and early digital elaborations, from Marilyn Monroe solarizations to the first laser cuts. He created the era of the supermodel, turning Naomi, Cindy, and Claudia into true celebrities. Bold color, provocative seduction, and the fusion of classical art with street culture were the heart of his vision.

Gianfranco Ferré, the "Architect of Fashion," viewed the garment as a complex structure. Trained in architecture, he translated design rigor and formal intelligence into sculptural volumes and impeccable constructions. Under his hands, the white shirt was transformed from a mundane staple into a taffeta or silk sculpture, featuring monumental collars and daring geometries. His luxury was solid, influenced by his travels in the East, particularly India, and by a near-engineering mindset. He was the first Italian called to relaunch Dior’s Haute Couture; for Ferré, the body was a space to be inhabited, and the dress was the project that enhanced it.

Valentino, the "Last Emperor," embodied Haute Couture in its most aristocratic sense. Absolute femininity, romanticism, and timeless luxury were the hallmarks of his style. Valentino Red, a unique shade of carmine, purple, and cadmium, became a universal code. He dressed the most elegant women on the planet, from Jackie Kennedy to Liz Taylor, pursuing pure beauty and a sartorial perfection that never yielded to vulgar provocation.

Krizia, Mariuccia Mandelli, represented intellectual eclecticism. The American press dubbed her "Crazy Krizia" for her ability to be daring without ever losing her sense of taste. She was the first to bring animals into knitwear, turning the sweater into a pop manifesto, and to experiment with unthinkable materials like rubber, cork, and eel skin. Her plissé (pleating), treated as volume and movement, anticipated visions that would become central to contemporary fashion. A cultured, free, and ironic woman, as Umberto Eco once wrote: "Choosing Krizia means choosing a way of thinking".

Armani, Versace, Ferré, Valentino, and Krizia were designer-entrepreneurs. For them, a garment was the direct expression of their worldview. If Krizia put a panther on a sweater, it was because it belonged to her personal imaginary, not because an algorithm flagged a 20% increase in "animalier" searches. Each of them created an immediately recognizable universe, proposing a style, not a trend.

Today, we are not simply witnessing a change in creative language, but a fundamental paradigm shift. The fashion system has progressively separated what had been inseparable for centuries: “Form from Meaning”.

The garment is no longer conceived as a cultural response to an era, but as a surface reactive to a data stream. It is no longer born from a vision of the world, but from a market forecast.

Aristotle defined the synolo as the indissoluble unity of matter and form: matter is potential, while form is what makes it "act," making a thing what it is. To separate them is to hollow out the object’s essence. Applied to fashion, this means that when form becomes pure appearance, disconnected from thought or an anthropological vision of the body and society, the garment loses its cultural function and becomes "accelerated merchandise".

Italian fashion won because it did the exact opposite. Those designers did not create to "position" themselves, but to propose a model of civilization: an idea of elegance, of labor, and of the relationship between the individual and the collective.

Their clothes told the story of a country moving beyond poor manufacturing to claim an intellectual role in the world.

Today, the risk is political even before it is aesthetic. When we renounce style to chase trends, we renounce the exercise of symbolic power. We accept that platforms, algorithms, and financial markets dictate the shapes of our desire. Creativity becomes execution rather than decision.

In this sense, the death of Valentino is not just the end of a great couturier. It is the closing of a historical cycle in which fashion was a form of cultural sovereignty, a sovereignty that Italy conquered not through force, but through thought, discipline, and beauty.

The question today is not whether figures like these will be born again, but whether there still exists the economic, political, and cultural space for a style that does not ask the market for permission to exist.

Because without a form that embodies meaning, only the image remains. And an image, when not supported by a vision, builds no identity: it simply consumes itself and disappears.