Giammetti
Giancarlo Giammetti. Fashion entrepreneur. During the 1960s he interrupted his architecture studies to become the business partner of the designer Valentino. He quickly made a reputation for himself as the creator of the brand’s worldwide success, and also as an innovator in the fashion industry. He launched the concept of prêt-à-porter in Italy, promotes the use of license agreements for the distribution of branded products, understood the importance of an advertising strategy, and invited the great photographers to collaborate with fashion, inventing the advertising groupage. He was the first to understand the importance of communication and popularized Valentino’s universe as the artistic expression of a great couturier and also as a well-developed network of creativity, affirming himself as a “designer in the shadow of another designer.” In the 1990s he established, together with the designer, the Accademia Valentino. He also signed the first collaborative agreement between a government entity and the fashion industry, through an understanding with the municipality of Rome providing for events at the Accademia Valentino intended to relaunch the cultural prestige of the city. With Valentino, he also founded the association L.I.F.E. (Lottare, Informare, Formare, Educare, or Fight, Inform, Form, Educate) to help children with AIDS. Predicting the challenges of the 21st century and the difficulties that the large fashion houses would have in attempting to assure their continuity on their own, he strengthened the competitiveness of the Valentino brand in the world markets by signing, in 1998, the first agreement in Italy between fashion and finance, with the incorporation of the HDP Group (Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali, S.p.A., or Holding Company of Industrial Shares), with Maurizio Romiti as general manager. Through this operation, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, with no direct heirs, guaranteed the creative continuity of the griffe they created.