It has possibly been the longest farewell in fashion. But Valentino Garavani (like Jesus and Lulu, he usually dispenses with a surname) finally announced his retirement in fashion today in Rome.

At 75, he leaves quite a legacy. Along with Giorgio Armani, 73, he is one of barely a handful of designers who sat atop the empires they had created in their youth. Yves Saint Laurent retired early this millennium, ravaged by drugs; Gianni Versace was murdered a decade ago; Emanuel Ungaro was bought out.

Yet throughout the turbulent 1990s and early Noughties, when eponymously named fashion houses were being gobbled up by international conglomerates, Valentino somehow remained serene and above the fray.

Not that there weren’t dramas. In 1998 he and his partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, sold the label to HdP, an Italian holding company for £150 million. In 2002, HdP sold it on, for £210 million and thereafter there were mutterings within the company that it wasn’t being nurtured sufficiently. Not that Valentino complained publicly: through both deals he and Giammetti boosted their already considerable fortunes.

From the start, Valentino lived lavishly. As a young apprentice in Paris, he decorated his chambre de bonne, a maid’s attic room, with Directoire furniture and held court there to a stream of socialites who were to become such a loyal part of the Valentino myth. His perfectionism is equally legendary. Sheets ironed on his bed every night, his gardeners covering the soil of his beloved gardens with forget-me-nots so that the maestro need not confront the sordid banality of mud, TV dinners eaten off silver trays and white linen.

The regal lifestyle — a stuccoed mansion in Holland Park, West London, a palazzo in Rome, a house in New York, a château outside Paris — enabled him to socialise with his clients on an equal footing and gave him first-hand insight of the kind of lives they lead and the clothes required to lead it.

The famous yacht has played host to every important world beauty, from Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1960s to Elizabeth Hurley, Elle MacPherson and Gwyneth Paltrow more recently. The party to celebrate his 45 years in fashion that took place in July was characteristically grand: 1,300 socialites and celebrities against backdrops that included the Colisseum and the Villa Borghese and a bill that was rumoured to hover around the £5 million mark. As Valentino said today: “It was a moment that will be impossible to repeat. And as the English say, I would like to leave the party when it is still full.”

In the end, it is the contemporary celebrities who are testimony to his talent. For while he was never especially groundbreaking, he has, as a valedictory exhibition in Rome this past summer demonstrated emphatically, consistently designed lovely clothes that are both timeless and fashionable. For four decades he has remained modern without ever becoming a fashion victim. A woman dressed in Valentino can be sure that her slenderness will be maximised, her breasts subtly lifted and her contours delicately celebrated.

It’s the classiness that propelled Jennifer Lopez to ask him to design her (second) wedding dress and impels Cate Blanchett, Uma Thurman, Reece Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, Kate Winslett and Julianne Moore to keep on wearing him to the Oscars.

His departure inevitably leaves a personality vacuum at the house. Stefano Pilati, currently busy making YSL a hot label again, is one contender. So too, apparently, is Alessandra Facchinetti, who was fired two years ago from Gucci.

Giambattista Valli, beloved by Victoria Beckham and Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the young duo behind one of New York’s most hyped labels, are also potentials. This next act many not be serene.

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