Love for the Fashion Documentary – Valentino, Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton and The September Issue

I love the documentary genre in film. I love its realism and the ability it has to tell the most truthful stories of events and especially of people. One of my favourite documentary sub genres is that of music and musicians. There are a plethroa of music related documentaries and in a future post I can discuss them in more detail. For now I want to post about a recent documentary I have seen called ‘Valentino: The last emperor‘. The documentary filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer, so fortunately, is invited to film legendry fashion designer Valentino Garavani around with his camera. He does this in a very unobtrusive way, although at some points Valentino does get angry by the constant filming due to the consistent invasion of his privacy, but Matt continues to document everything. He captures everything the audience needs to see, to learn about this world and experience it first hand. He captures the people, the discusions, the places in such a wonderfully captivating way while staying true to a story of Valentino. The film also keeps a level of simplicity as it follows Valentino around, starting from the Valentino 2006 Paris Collection and ending with an exuberant 2007 retrospective event that is for Valentino’s 45-year career. There is so much to mention in this film that I am not going to attempt to do this, one has to watch this film to fully experience a wonderful part of Valentinos life. If you love film, documentaries and above all fahion, this is an absolute must see film. It takes you into the world of a fashion icon, it deals so beautifully with his love for his life long partner Giancarlo Giammetti. It takes us behind the scenes into the world of haute couture. Watching this film I felt lucky to catch a glimpse of the fashion worlds ultra supremo. We meet so many talented people in this film. In the fashion world we get introduced to the greats, Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford and Karl Lagerfeld. We see numerous A-list celebrities all vying for a glimpse of Valentino’s creations. I cannot express in words exactly how much I loved this film and what a homage it plays to the fashion world. I kept thinking that in all Valentino’s wealth there must be some pretentious type of superficiality but then I thought to myself. The world of fashion is made up of humanities need and love for clothing. It is as fundamental as air and water and food. Fashion in some sense is about clothing and a lifestyle and a taste and an expression of ones character. Fahison is about love and beauty and masculinity and feminity. Fashion is art and is one of the largest industries in the world. It is timeless. I realized that Valentino was able to use his talent to create the most beautiful fashion known to mankind. In the same way that Beethoven and Mozart created the worlds most beautiful symphonies, Valentino created the most beautiful clothing and fashion. The title ‘The Last Emperor” in my view indicates the last emperor of haute couture. Someone commented in the film that since Valentino lived through the rise of haute couture that no one born today will ever be able to create that kind of work. The film also deals with the enormous business side of the fashion industry. The enormity of the fashion world in regard to business and industry is incomprehendable to myself. Valentino managed, by being one of the worlds greatest fashion designers, to amase a fortune of wealth, which enabled him to live the most lavish lifestyle imaginable.

One of the central themes of the film is Valentino and Giancarlos love for each other. Their love and relationship for each other spans over 50 years and is expressed with such beauty and enderance in the film. There is so much more I can express about this film but I will end off by mentioning another wonderful fashion documentary I have seen which is also a must see for anyone who loves fashion and its called ‘Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton‘ and one I will watch later today probably The September Issue