Thursday 10^th June 2010

I’m suffering from pre-boarding tension. Tomorrow I board for Brussels to weekend with my old friend, Conor Cadoux, who’s huge in the EU. At least I’m going Leisure Class on Eurostar.

And my staff have let me down. This morning I thought to unscrew the window catch in the downstairs bathroom which Miroslav’s ‘boys’ (Miroslav is my Polish builder on the verge of nervous collapse) put back upside down. Before I knew it I was to and fro from the hardware store, rotten patches uncovered, battling with filler, battling with screws, shower screen purchased at vast cost found to be loose on its hinges.

Dynamite the home and start again!  Why not?

I’m sure Valentino doesn’t have to put up with all this. Yesterday I was going to tell you about the stunning doc I watched about him on TV on Monday.

Actually his suffering was acute. Sequins on the dress – yes or no? Agony over the desert setting. Not really right for the collection. Why, oh why were the dresses mounted so high on the wall at the retrospective exhibition? So hurt, so crushed. Please leave me alone.

The filmmakers had a brilliant eye. It was one bizarre episode after another. Too hot in the marquee? Just hack open the sides with scissors. Joan Collins asked for the difference between beauty and trash: ‘I’ve no idea’. Valentino himself quizzed: ‘What do women really want: ‘They want beauty.’ Waiter at a function apropos of nothing: ‘The Countess of Ribes has brought her own vodka.’ Valentino to Karl Lagerfeld: ‘Just us. The rest are making rags.’

Various other high-handed pronouncements: ‘You’d think you were at Macy’s’ (Not good). ‘A woman in a long dress showing her ankles: disgusting.’

But it was all rather probing and unexpectedly deep. At the heart of the film was the relationship between Valentino and his business partner and lover of 50 years (although it was implied they were separate bedrooms) Giancarlo Giammetti. How they bickered: Valentino: ‘How was I at the party?’ Giancarlo: ‘Do you want the truth? You are just a little too tan.’ Val: ‘Too tan?  No, no, no, never.’ Another time there was a row about a frock. V: ‘You’re getting fat. Look at you with your three layers.’

Perfect Poor Little Rich Gay – awfully dysfunctional and ghastly yet marvellous and enduring. Really they were right for each other, Val with talent and tyrannical ways yet fragile, Giancarlo with head screwed on, knowing what to do. When Valentino was given the Legion d’honneur he struggled for control when paying tribute to his friend.

And how he emblazoned his damage!  The final collection was a miracle of stunning frockage. There was an astonishing kind of boa in pink made by putting millions and millions of deep pleats into a tube of fabric. ‘All I can do is create dresses. Everything else is a disaster,’ Valentino said. Not entirely true but you knew what he meant. Such a lot of nonsense but a complete triumph. His life, I mean.