Giancarlo Giammetti

Giancarlo Giammetti (born 5 February 1938) is an Italian businessman, known for his professional and personal association with Valentino Garavani. He is the founder with Valentino Garavani of the Valentino fashion house. He is the Honour President of Valentino. In 2006, he was inducted in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

Giancarlo Giammetti was born in Rome in 1942. He attended liceo classico at the Collegio San Gabriele in Rome. In the 1960s, when he was a student at the local faculty of architecture, he met Valentino Garavani and they created the Valentino Company together.

In 1989, he created with Valentino the Valentino Academy, a cultural and art exhibition space located near Valentino's atelier in Rome.

In 1998, the Valentino brand was sold to HDP, an Italian conglomerate, and, in 2002, to the Marzotto group for $210 million.

Giammetti eventually left the Valentino group in 2007 after its acquisition by British private equity group Permira, as the structure had evolved into a corporate giant and he felt his days were over.

In 2013, Assouline Publishing published Private: Giancarlo Giammetti a collection of photos "culled" from 57,000 personal pictures Giammetti had catalogued over the years. A party was hosted in Milan by Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani to celebrate the book's release, which was attended by Anna Wintour, Georgia May Jagger, Joan Smalls, Olivia Palermo.

He and Garavani created the Valentino Garavani Foundation in 2017 to focus on Valentino's archives and philanthropic affairs. In 2021, he put up for sale, at Christie's, Jean-Michel Basquiat's In any case (1983) for $50 million, which he had purchased in 2007 from the Gagosian.

The relationship between Valentino and Giammetti and the events leading to their retirement and up the party in Rome, and the party itself, are covered in the 2008 film Valentino: The Last Emperor.