People

Valentino obituary

After Valentino Garavani retired in 2008 from a fashion world in which the meaning of luxury had changed, his half-century of couture creation was marked with exhibitions.

The one at Somerset House in London in 2012, Valentino: Master of Couture, displayed more than a hundred of his outfits within close peering range, each with a card bearing the name of the woman – royal, diva, star, social leader – for whom it had been created.

In another room were samplers of the superlative techniques of Valentino’s ragazze, the ‘‘girls’’ in white coats in his couture ateliers who had sewn those gowns. The definitive Valentino dress was patchworked of handmade lace, so light it could have been posted in an A3 envelope.

Valentino, who has died aged 93, was a specialist in a high level of luxury without undue grandeur, dressing the world’s most photographed women from the Dolce Vita period of Italian cinema in the 1960s to J-Lo at the Oscars in the 2000s. He never led, or wanted to lead, fashion in cut, line or mood, and, although he was proud to be the first Italian couturier fully, if reluctantly, accepted by Paris as one of their own by training and aspiration, he kept a direct connection with a more personal Italian tradition of skilled dressmakers: the needs of the wearer always came first.

Glamour was his metier – he had been enchanted into the business as a boy by the glittering, shimmering, robes of the showgirls processing down endless stairs in the 1941 Hollywood musical Ziegfeld Girl. Long before red carpets at film premieres and the steps of the New York Metropolitan Museum on gala night became major fashion venues, Valentino designed gowns that would have been show-stoppers on them.

He was far ahead of Paris when the actual red carpet business took off in the late 80s.

Valentino was born in Voghera, Lombardy. From his babyhood onwards, his parents, Mauro and Teresa (she named him after the silent film sensation Rudolph Valentino) indulged the boy’s tastes, and later his aunt Rosa and another local dressmaker allowed him into their workrooms. From 1949, his parents funded his education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and supported him through five years of apprenticeship in the house of the couturier Jean Dessès; then he did two more years with Guy Laroche

Valentino’s father and a fellow businessman backed his first couture studio, on the Via Condotti in Rome in 1959, and Valentino, determined to equal Parisian couture, spent without limit on fabrics, furs and French mannequins. It might have ended in bankruptcy, but in a cafe, one hot night in July 1960, he met the 19-year-old architecture student Giancarlo Giammetti. Giammetti, who had a natural aptitude for business, gave up his studies, and joined Valentino to refound the company in a small apartment on the Via Gregoriana. Gradually, they took over the rest of the palazzo.

Their business was in the right place at the right time. Italian craftwork was relatively cheap, compared with France, for the making of fashion, and California for the shooting of movies. Valentino made a dress for Elizabeth Taylor, visiting the then Rome studios Cinecittà for a premiere, and in 1962 Giammetti persuaded Valentino to show at the Italian collections in the Pitti Palace in Florence, which attracted American department store buyers unwilling to pay ever higher Paris premiums for the rights to reproduce catwalk designs.

Valentino began to sell directly in New York in 1964, his most valued customer the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy; he later made her delicate lace dress for her wedding to Aristotle Onassis. As John Fairchild of Women’s Wear Daily said: “Valentino just wanted to dress very important, beautiful women.”

Jackie O was his perfect customer, moneyed yet devoid of vulgarity, as were most of his private clients. Through the 60s and into the 70s, he was court dressmaker to the beautiful people, including the empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, and the Vogue editor Diana Vreeland; he dressed them all with featherweight majesty, though Yves Saint Laurent’s business partner, Pierre Bergé, once sneered at him for dressing ‘‘whores and kept women”.

As Paris couture turned theatrical from the mid-70s, Valentino remained the safest salon for wealthy women, and Giammetti ensured that he and Valentino could live at a similar level to their clients through up to 42 lucrative licensing deals. Their style was high – parties, travel with a retinue to five fully-staffed, antiques-stuffed homes around the world, a yacht, a jet and, in Italy’s most turbulent years, a bullet-proof Ferrari in Valentino’s signature shade of red. “You feel cosy around them,” Joan Juliet Buck, former editor of French Vogue, said of the pair, “wondering when they’ll bring out the next quail egg.”

All this was more extravagant than the Parisian couturier manner. Even Hubert de Givenchy never assembled an art collection to compare with that of Valentino, who hung his beloved Bronzino portrait of Eleanora of Toledo behind his desk. In 1990, he opened an art gallery, the Accademia Valentino, in Rome, where he was, teased Giammetti, “a state power”.

The history of the fashion house is best traced garment by garment, who wore it and when. His dressmaker’s good manners in physically flattering his clients brought movie-star and later pop-star custom, including Taylor, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, and Cate Blanchett, who had not a measurement or a gesture in common – “you need to know the body,” Valentino warned, “you need to know the mood of the lady, and you need a very good seamstress”.

The couture ateliers lost a few million annually out of a billion-dollar turnover, but were an investment in prestige, research and development. In Valentino: The Last Emperor, Matt Tyrnauer’s 2008 documentary film, the links between Valentino, his clients and the workhands who clad them are visibly close: many customers and seamstresses were with him all their adult lives, and his few key upper-level personnel stayed for decades too. The film was an unexpected pop phenomenon, and made Valentino’s retirement feel even more like the end of an era.

Giammetti had persuaded Valentino to go directly into high-end ready-to-wear, menswear and accessories, and in the 90s terminated all licences except for perfume, jeans and sunglasses. In 1998, when couture houses were being transformed into brand trophies, he and Valentino were paid $300m for the company by the Italian conglomerate HdP.

It was sold on in 2002 to the textile firm Marzotto Apparel: a private equity group bought it in 2007, and sold it to a Qatari consortium in 2012. Valentino showed his final collection in 2008, but in retirement still designed for a few favoured clients, and the ballet. Otherwise, he sustained his perpetual deep tan between the yacht and the gardens of his houses, with his tribe of pug dogs and important guests.

The end of his emotional relationship with Giammetti after 12 years never impaired their business partnership and friendship. From 1982, Valentino lived with Bruce Hoeksema, who was vice-president of the company until its sale. His sister, Wanda, who also worked in the business, died in 1997.

Of all his Italian, American, British and French awards, he was most pleased at becoming a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 2006, and with his 2008 Médaille de la Ville de Paris. He remembered when the French did not believe that there could ever be serious Italian couture.

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani, couturier, born 11 May 1932; died 19 January 2026

The Guardian

People

Christopher Lane noticed a ‘sketchy’ detail early in relationship with Wade Wilson

Months before he brutally murdered two women in one day, Wade Wilson began a brief romance with a man named Christopher Lane.

“This was my first relationship with a guy,” Lane said during season 2 of Netflix’s docuseries Worst Ex Ever, which premiered in May 2026. “We enjoyed being together. We did a lot of stuff together. We had fun.”

The two men dated for over a month, during which time Lane claimed that Wilson — who would later be known as the “Deadpool Killer” because of the name he shared with the Marvel character — physically assaulted him with a knife on at least one occasion.

This act of violence, in hindsight, foreshadowed what was to come.

Five months after their relationship ended, Wilson strangled 35-year-old Kristine Melton while she slept after meeting her in a bar in Fort Myers, Fla. Hours later, he lured 43-year-old Diane Ruiz into his car and choked her while he was driving, Gulf Coast News Now reported. He then ran over her body multiple times.

Wilson was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in June 2024 and received two death sentences.

So, where is Christopher Lane now? Here’s everything to know about his relationship with Wade Wilson and his life after dating the “Deadpool Killer.”

Lane briefly dated Wilson months before his killing spree

The two men met in March 2019 while working at a carnival in Inverness, Fla. A week after being introduced, Wilson moved into Lane’s RV, and they started dating soon after.

He even asked Lane to make their relationship Facebook official, which came as a surprise, given that Wilson had been “so skeptical about being with a guy.”

“Wade said that he was straight when I met him,” Lane said on Worst Ex Ever. “But I was like ‘That seems a little sketchy.’ If you’re straight, you don’t move into a guy’s house with a guy and then want to sleep in his bed.”

He claimed that Wilson attacked him with a knife

After a night of partying and taking a substance Lane believed to be bath salts, Wilson allegedly began “flipping out” over someone breaking into the RV — then threatened to slit Lane’s throat with a knife.

What followed, Lane claimed, was a four-hour altercation in which Wilson choked and stabbed him multiple times in the chest and hand, before throwing him through a pair of sliding glass doors.

Wilson fled, only to return the next day alongside Lane’s sister, covered in blood.

“My sister calmed the situation down, and like, he showed back up with blood all over him and apologized,” Lane said on Worst Ex Ever. “He seemed sincere.”

Wilson wasn’t charged with attacking Lane

Lane didn’t report the incident to the police, and they moved to Key West a month later.

He broke up with Wilson after learning that he had been lying to people about the nature of their relationship.

At the time Worst Ex Ever was released in May 2026, no charges had been brought against Wilson in connection with Lane’s alleged assault.

Where is Christopher Lane now?

According to his Instagram page, Lane still resides in Florida and works in the carnival circuit.

Though he’s mostly kept his history with Wade private, he shared a screenshot on Instagram of his profile views increasing in August 2024 with the caption, “When people find out your the til tok killerWade Wilson’s ex boyfriend lol.”

Worst Ex Ever marked the first time Lane opened up about his relationship with the “Deadpool Killer.”

“Looking back, the night Wade stabbed me could have ended up very differently,” he said on Worst Ex Ever. “I could have been dead.”

PEOPLE

People

David Attenborough, ‘the voice for nature,’ turns 100

Britain’s David Attenborough, who has for decades been the world’s most authoritative voice on the natural world and whose documentaries have been watched by hundreds of millions, will on Friday celebrate his 100th birthday.

After more than 70 years of film-making, Attenborough’s instantly recognisable voice is synonymous with the story of ‌nature. He is still at the vanguard of efforts to protect the environment and has produced some of his most impactful work in recent years.

Counting Britain’s royal family, Barack Obama and pop star Billie Eilish among his admirers, Attenborough’s charisma, humour and warmth, alongside the depth of his knowledge and his flair for storytelling, have made him a broadcasting superstar.

“Your ability to communicate the beauty and vulnerability of our natural environment remains unequalled,” was how the late Queen Elizabeth summed up his achievements in 2019.

‘LONESOME GEORGE’ AND THE FRAGILE ENVIRONMENT

Attenborough’s films have communicated the wonder and also the tragedies of the natural world to viewers across the globe.

Standout scenes include his encounter with two playful young mountain gorillas who clambered onto him ⁠during his landmark 1979 series “Life on Earth”.

He also made his audience marvel at the teamwork of a pod of orcas hunting a seal by creating waves to break up ice, and his telling in 2012 of the story of “Lonesome George”, the last surviving Pinta Island tortoise, moved people to tears.

“He’s about 80 years old, and getting a bit creaky in his joints – as indeed am I,” Attenborough, then 86, said.

George’s death, two weeks after he was filmed, marked the extinction of his species.

“He’s focused the attention of the world on the fragility of our environment,” Attenborough said at the time.

While Attenborough has topped numerous national popularity polls, being named the country’s most admired man and the greatest living British cultural icon, friends say he rolls his eyes when he is labelled a “national treasure”.

“What he feels is that he’s a public servant. He feels that he had the unique opportunity to be the voice for nature, to tell everybody about the wonders of nature,” Mike Gunton, a television producer who has worked with Attenborough many times, told Reuters.

As climate change has accelerated and the threat to much of the world has become more urgent, Attenborough devoted much of ‌his 90s ⁠to raising public awareness.

His 2017 blockbuster “Blue Planet 2”, which highlighted the scourge of plastic in the ocean, achieved some of the highest viewing figures on British television before being sold to broadcasters around the world.

Albatrosses unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic fished from the ocean jolted public opinion and led the British government and major retailers to announce measures to reduce the use of plastics.

“I think every single person who’s seen anything that Sir David has done has been inspired to care about nature,” said Doug Gurr, director of the Natural History Museum in London.

SPECIAL BBC BROADCASTS AND EVENTS

In Britain, Attenborough’s centenary is being marked with a week of ⁠special broadcasts on the BBC, a live concert at the Royal Albert Hall, events at museums, nature walks and tree planting.

The broadcasts include his new series “Secret Garden”. At 99, he remains heavily involved in programme-making, say BBC colleagues, driven by his enduring curiosity and joy of storytelling.

“That’s typical David. He makes everything really enjoyable,” said Mike Salisbury, who has worked as a producer on several Attenborough documentaries.

Born on May 8, 1926, Attenborough spent ⁠his childhood collecting fossils, insects and dried seahorses.

His BBC career took off in 1954 when he presented “Zoo Quest”, which involved him travelling to far-flung parts of the world and bringing animals back to London Zoo.

By the 1970s he had risen to be programme controller at the broadcaster but decided he wanted to return to making nature documentaries.

Screened in 1979 when he was 52, “Life on Earth” ⁠made him a household name. He wrote the entire 13-hour script and travelled the world for three years to tell the story of evolution from simple organisms to humans.

Dozens of documentaries followed, including “Blue Planet,” “Frozen Planet” and “Dynasties”. As the decades passed, his sense of the need to act only increased.

“How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew what was happening to the world and did nothing?” Attenborough said.

Reuters

People

Meryl Streep revives iconic cerulean sweater

Miranda Priestly would have something to say about Meryl Streep’s latest look.

With a nod to one of the most iconic moments in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Streep appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” wearing a cerulean blue cable-knit sweater.

The J.Crew cashmere style is a custom version of one that the brand currently sells for $198, created with Streep’s stylist Micaela Erlanger.

J.Crew designer Olympia Gayot said in a press release, “Meryl made cerulean a cultural thesis, so the bar was high. That monologue is so smart and funny — it reminds you that what feels personal is actually part of a much bigger story, which is why ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ still resonates.”

“At J.Crew, we’ve been obsessed with color since 1983, so stepping into cerulean — the cerulean — with Micaela was equal parts honor and wink,” she added.

When asked about the look, Streep casually tells Colbert that it’s “Annie Hathaway’s,” referring to her co-star, who wore a similar style in one of the first meetings of their on-screen characters, with the host then repeating a line from the original 2006 movie.

Speaking about the “lumpy blue sweater” Hathaway wears in the original, Streep as Priestley says, “what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean.”

After describing the trickle-down of the trend from 2002 Oscar de la Renta in to “some tragic casual corner where [she], no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin,” she delivers one of the most-repeated lines from the film.

“That blue represents millions of dollars of countless jobs, and it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room … from a pile of ‘stuff.’”

The press tour for “The Devil Wears Prada 2” has only just begun and this is already the second nod to the color that is burned in everyone’s brains.

On Sunday, Ashley Afriyie, who has been working with Hathaway and Streep’s styling teams, also shared a photo on Instagram of the former wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a Pantone chip of the bright blue cerulean hue. It said “ ceruleo,” the Italian word for cerulean.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Streep shared, “The first movie was such an unknown quantity,” adding, “that fashion brands were initially hesitant to get on board and lend clothes.”

The sequel is clearly free of any similar issues.

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