In January and February 2026, a small exhibition will be held in the Franca Sozzani Fashion Reading Room at IED Milan, paying tribute to Valentino, a great master of Italian fashion, who passed away on January 19.
Valentino: Après moi, le déluge!
Date
30 January 2026
Among the prized exhibits, the display case houses the Red Book, published in 2000 to mark Valentino's fortieth anniversary. This boxed set contains a portfolio of forty photographs by some of the most important fashion photographers of the time, accompanied by the Valentino: Fashion Photocopy Manual 1960-00, a four-color publication with a cover that interprets and reflects the designer's signature red. The latter, without page numbers, is described as "...a document useful for consultation, for the history of fashion, and for understanding the extent of manual labor."
Both copies were owned by Franca Sozzani (who conceived the concept), and were later donated to IED.
The exhibition also features the tabloid-format publication 2000 Celebrating Forty Years, which presents international press coverage of Valentino; and the DVD of the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor, released to mark the announcement of the designer's retirement from the Maison's creative direction.
The selection concludes with Valentino: Objects of Couture, published in 2013 by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, then creative directors of the fashion house. The volume bears the signatures of both authors.
The IED Roma Libraries are also participating in the tribute to the great couturier by highlighting this short bibliographical selection of volumes, including a numbered edition with a handwritten dedication.
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