Oddly, for a city still coasting on Fellini’s depiction of itself as the embodiment of the stylish dolce vita, it has been more than 30 years since Rome hosted a fashion show of note.

So when at the weekend the designer Valentino transported his 45th anniversary fashion show to Rome (for one night only; next season it will return to Paris where it has taken place since 1975) the citizens reacted with the same brio as they would if the Rolling Stones turned up to perform.

More, in fact: the Stones were in town, but while their concerts were relatively contained on the outskirts, Valentino’s extravaganza encompassed most of the centre of Rome, embracing many of the city’s most historic sights and even recreating one, leaving a trail of crash barriers and hordes of onlookers in their wake.

Valentino, 75, is one of Rome’s most famous sons from the past 50 years. After an apprenticeship in Paris, he returned to Rome and opened his first shop on the Via Condotti in 1959 and became a superstar. That demands celebration.

First, there was the dinner on Friday night for 300 of Valentino’s friends, including Sir Mick Jagger. Guests glided through the venue formerly known as the Ruins of Venus’s Temple. I say formerly, because under the extraordinary eye of Dante Ferretti, the film set designer, the temple’s 40 classical columns had been rebuilt, for the occasion with internal lighting.

As an obligingly picturesque lemon-slice moon rose across the inky sky, the columns gave off a ghostly glow. Italian opera struck up and from nowhere classical ballerinas suspended from invisible wires began to pirouette above the Roman traffic against the floodlit backdrop of the Coliseum. It’s almost impossible not to make this sound camp. Perhaps it was, but it worked. No wonder that there is now talk of the city keeping the floodlit columns as a permanent attraction.

Meanwhile, anyone nostalgic for a bit of ancient goddess action had only to look at the guests – at one point Uma Thurman stood on a raised dais near the buffet, her long white Valentino dress gently radiating white light thanks to the columns – to realise that dressed by the right designers, goddesses are alive and kicking.

By Saturday, another 1,000 friends had arrived for the fashion show and sit-down dinner, which took place in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, a 16th-century palazzo bursting with Berninis, Caravaggios, Raphaels, Titians, plus more celebrities including young and older Hollywood (Anne Hathaway to Joan Collins), many of Valentino’s peers, such as Armani, Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Manolo Blahnik and Diane von Furstenberg, endless euro-royals and Annie Lennox doing cabaret.

Heaven knows how many private jets had been corralled for the occasion. But being well dressed à laValentino was never a low-maintenance affair. Perhaps because so many of the guests, such as Princess Caroline of Monaco and her daughter, Charlotte, have been wearing couture since infancy, this was a glamorous crowd that made the Oscars look like a tinned milk convention in Milwaukee.

Like the masterful retrospective Valentino exhibition, curated by Patrick Kinmonth at the museum of Ara Pacis, Valentino’s autumn-winter couture show proved how ageless many of his designs are. At a rumoured cost of £5 million for the weekend event, this was not the time to ask about retirement or which of the two private equity firms circling the house will swallow it up. Suffice to say that this week, at least, Valentino is not retiring.

Times recommends

• Live chat: Thrifty ways to update your winter wardrobe
• Is anybody out there really listening?
• Nutrition Q&A: Will eating late make me fat?