Après Moi, le Déluge

The fashion industry awaits the release of the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor with bated breath. Although it's scheduled to premiere at Cannes this month, few details have dared to emerge. Anna Wintour doesn't have a cameo, but André Leon Talley makes an appearance--as does the house's newest designer. Judging from the last lines of the film, the transition from Valentino Garavani to Alessandra Facchinetti was far from seamless. "Après moi, le déluge," the former says ominously. The phrase, coined by Louis XV, translates roughly to, "After me, the downfall." No wonder Facchinetti didn't join the rest of the cognoscenti in rushing backstage to congratulate the designer after his farewell show in January.

The film's director Matt Tyrnauer, Vanity Fair's editor-at-large and the author of Valentino Garavani: Una Grande Storia Italiana, appreciates the designer's storied lifestyle. "He and Giancarlo [Giammetti] maintained a certain level of Italian elegance and style-you know, three meals a day with waiters with white gloves, for example. The boats in the summer, the skiing in the winter...it's a kind of ultra moda couture lifestyle that might have been much more common 50 years ago, when there were Italian playboys personified by Agnelli," Tyrnauer told The Daily. "But they have upheld that tradition and done it in the most extraordinary way. To see that from the inside was pretty amazing." Needless to say, the style world can't hardly wait.

Article credit: BIANCA POSTERLI