I've seen high-priced books from Gucci and Chanel recently and now Valentino gets the deluxe treatment. Una Grande Storia Italiana - Valentino Garavani is a new book from Taschen. The book comes in a silk-covered clamshell box that is tinted in Valentino red. Inside, the 738-page book includes drawings, magazine shoots, advertisements, portraits of Valentino, and documentary photographs. The text includes Vanity Fair writer Matt Tyrnauer's interviews with twenty of Valentino's collaborators and friends and a tribute to Valentino by fashion writer Suzy Menkes. The Collector's Edition is limited to 2,000 individually numbered copies, each signed by Valentino and sells for $1,000.

The glamorous life and work of Valentino Garavani

Think Valentino: think luxury. Think elegance. Think red carpet. Fashion’s most beloved upholder of refined decadence and the most exciting couturier in business is known around the globe simply by his first name. Only a few years after opening his fashion house in Rome in 1959, Valentino was already at the height of success, counting Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, and Audrey Hepburn among his devotees. Over forty years later, not much has changed—he’s still dressing the top celebrities, from Gwyneth Paltrow to J.Lo, though now his business is a major economic force in Italy and his fashion house is among the most famous in the world. Valentino has always designed clothes for glamorous and sophisticated women, never wavering from his signature style even when grunge, deconstruction, and other passing fads were all the rage. Though his couture division almost never makes a profit (his ready-to-wear lines are what fuel the business), his heart is most solidly devoted to the magnificent haute couture gowns that earned him his reputation as fashion’s most talented dressmaker.

his luxurious limited-edition publication renders homage to Valentino’s illustrious career via a copious selection of images from his archives, including drawings, magazine shoots, advertisements, portraits of Valentino, and documentary photographs.