Timeless elegance

Regular readers may remember my post on Milavida, the museum in Tampere highlighting not only the history of the industrial family who built the mansion it is located in but also showcasing temporary design-related exhibitions. Some time ago, I was lucky to be driving through Tampere on my own and could take my time at the latest show of haute couture dresses by the Italian maestro Valentino. Fantastica!

Mikado silk with hand-painted coral patterns, 1968-9.

Valentino Garavani was born in 1932 in a small town in norther Italy. In those days, Paris was still the one and only home for haute couture so also Valentino lived there for a few years in his early and mid-20s studying fashion design and working at fashion houses.

Silk chiffon, 1963-4.

Italian luxury fashion is considered to have born in 1951 when a Tuscan businessman arranged the ‘First Italian High Fashion Show’ at his palazzo in Florence. It was a success and soon Italian designers became very trendy and popular. Their Moda boutique type of fashion was a new concept in the business bringing out less expensive creations than those of the established French fashion houses were. The emergence of this second high fashion centre brought Valentino back to Italy and he started his own fashion house in Rome in 1959.

Silk and silk chiffon beaded with stones and corals, 1964-5.

The saying that fashion is for those who don’t have style beautifully applies to Valentino’s creations. Very early on, he found his own style of glamorous timeless elegance never minding the general trends in fashion. Exquisite fabrics, meticulous attention to detail, use of traditional handcrafted methods such as embroidery, and decorations in beadwork and sequins, are the premier characteristics of his designs.

Silk lurex completely embroidered with flowers in raffia fiber, beads, and sequins, 1967-8.

Sometimes he designed a pattern completely covering the fabric in lavish imaginative embroidery that was then executed with impeccable craftsmanship at the atelier of Pino Grasso in Milan. Several samples of such patterns were on display from the Grasso archives.

The show only exhibited a dozen or so designs, most of them from the 1960s and 70s, on loan from private collections yet it offered plenty to explore. In addition to a couple of gowns in Valentino’s signature colour, the red called rosso Valentino, there were some black and white gowns plus a fabulously purple silk gown decorated with dyed ostrich feathers.

Silk chiffon with dyed ostrich feathers, 1974-5.

Silk with silk taffeta corset top, 1982-3.

Silk, 1976-7.

All of these designs from 35-50 years ago would be perfectly suitable to wear also today. Even the below ‘palace pyjamas’ in printed silk from the late 1970s has stood the test of time beautifully although the context you might see it in might be different today. 

Printed silk, 1976-7.

Doesn’t it look like something you might spot on the streets of any of the fashion metropolises today? Valentino certainly is a master of wearable works of art, the last emperor of haute couture as he is often referred to.

Silk faille, 1969-70.

Valentino retired in 2008, at the age of 75. Already ten years prior to that, he and the co-founder of the business Giancarlo Giammetti had sold the Valentino group to an Italian holding company HdP. A few years thereafter, it was acquired by the Italian textile manufacturer Marzotto, then by the London-based private equity fund Permira, and finally in 2012 by the Qatari royal family’s investment fund Mayhoola.

Silk taffeta, 1969-70.

I don't know why but this design makes be think about Angelina Jolie.

I’ve been wondering how it would feel to follow the passing around of your brainchild when you no longer have any say in what used to be your empire. Since the latest acquisition there is at least enough financial backup the emperor doesn’t have to worry about the future of his legacy in that respect. And he certainly doesn’t have to ‘sweep the streets he used to own’. But still, how would it feel to let go when you have created something this grand?

Aren’t we mere mortals fortunate not to have any empires to worry about. After all, everything will have to be left behind in the end anyway.

Swan of the oceans

Once upon a time, more precisely in the 1960s, there was a Finnish paper salesman who felt his job left him with quite a lot of spare time. As he lived on the west coast of Finland in Pietarsaari, a small town also known by its Swedish name Jakobstad, he began to build a boat in his father-in-law’s garage. He then had an idea: to start a business of his own with a vision to build the world’s best sailboats that would combine elegance with excellent cruising and racing qualities.

The hull would be made of fibre-reinforced plastic allowing serial production but the trimmings would be of wood handmade by the best of craftsmen. The boat would be named Swan. Having studied in the USA, he was such a convincer he persuaded one of the best-known naval architecture firms, the American Sparkman & Stevens, to design the first Swan for his company Nautor.

The business had a flying start when the boats began to gain success in regattas. In 1974, a Swan won the first Whitbread Round the World Race – later renamed the Volvo Ocean Race – and the rest is history, as the saying goes. Business flourished and Nautor’s Swan grew into one of the best-known and most-valued brands admired by everyone in yachting. Ever since the company has continued to build fabulously elegant sailboats in Pietarsaari, the current number amounting to some 2000, all designed by renowned naval architects.

Note the arrow brand symbol on the side.

Needless to say, my favourite colour, not to mention the sailor. 

Nevertheless, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Very early on, a fire destroyed the boatyard with a dozen of unfinished hulls. Insurance covered the damages but the firm was driven into financial difficulties when catching up what was lost. A solution was found when the forest company the owner earlier worked for bought Nautor.

The first Swan ever built, Tarantella I, currently owned by Nautor.

Years went by and the Swans built became more and more exquisite, bespoke and unique, in addition to being arguably the safest sailboats on the market. In 1998, a group of investors bought the company the main shareholder and chairman of the board being Leonardo Ferragamo of the Ferragamo fashion dynasty from Florence, one of the sons of Salvatore I posted about here. Since then, Nautor’s Swan has been even more distinctly a luxury brand out of the reach of any regular sailors. Now the least expensive new Swan is believed to be worth a million euros and the most costly some 20 times more.

But there are still quite a number of vintage Swans around, even in our country, the kind you might be lucky to find starting at 100,000 to 200,000 euros. In late July, almost a hundred of them – with the addition of a few dozen from abroad – gathered in Turku for the company’s 50th Anniversary Regatta sponsored by the Oras faucet company from the neighbouring town Rauma. 

Naturally, we went to have a closer look when the boats were moored on both sides of the river Aura. We also tried to see some glimpses of the races and made sure to be watching the parade of sails when the yachts were leaving Turku. Some of them may have been heading straight for Porto Cervo in Sardinia where another Swan regatta, this time sponsored by Rolex, took place last week.

But what happened to the founder of Nautor, Mr Pekka Koskenkylä? He stayed for a few years after selling the company, then moved to Cannes working as an agent for the firm for five years before completely moving on. Later he managed a business in Thailand building Mirabella sloops, the then world’s largest single-mast superyachts.

Just before retirement, Koskenkylä had a motor cruiser built for himself and lived in it with his wife sailing the oceans for seven years. He will be 79 next month living the life of a grandfather in the south of France in the house they built in the countryside there. He was a visionary entrepreneur whose tenacity and attention to craftsmanship and quality was a world apart from the short-term-profit-seeking business thinking prevailing today. If only his fine creation wouldn’t have been steered far beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Incidentally, the opening ceremony of the anniversary regatta was held on board the full-rigged museum ship Suomen Joutsen or The Swan of Finland that used to serve as a school ship for the Finnish navy. It was this ship that gave Pekka Koskenkylä the idea to name his boat Swan in the first place. With the founder present, the circle was beautifully closed in Turku half a century later.