When Paris-based Italian designer Giambattista Valli launched a haute couture line more than a decade ago to complement his ready-to-wear offerings, “people thought I was crazy”, he says in a recent interview. Haute couture is the epitome of luxury dressmaking, catering to only a smattering of clients: very wealthy women who can afford one-of-a-kind, custom-made creations who don’t balk at the idea of paying up to US$100,000 for a dress. “Couture is important to the brand because our clients want something extraordinary and buying haute couture is like collecting art or a design object, and it’s wonderful that [my couture clients] support an art that would otherwise disappear,” Valli says. The designer is not one to follow trends or conventional wisdom, and you certainly won’t see him jumping on the bandwagon of luxury brands catering to sneakerheads and streetwear aficionados with hoodies and sneakers. “I just can’t. When everyone was wearing sweatpants at home during the Covid lockdown, I was dressing up at home. You always have to stay true to yourself even when things are going in a different direction. “I have to be honest to myself. I just can’t do a hoodie.” Since founding his eponymous label in 2005, Valli has become the go-to designer for women who want to make a statement clad in a tulle dress or a lavishly embroidered gown. His clothes celebrate beauty in all its forms and make the wearer look – and feel – beautiful. His loyal following ranges from Middle Eastern royals to European jet-setters and celebrities like Rihanna. They all know that if they want to stand out on the red carpet or just on a night out on the town, a confection from Giambattista Valli will do the trick, and then some. We’re meeting the designer in Rome, his hometown, where he is hosting a dinner in collaboration with luxury online retailer Mytheresa to celebrate the launch of a collection of dresses that he feels suits this time of post-lockdown joie de vivre. “This post-Covid period has been a positive for my brand because women are looking for happy times, lighthearted moments and having fun and for beauty in everything,” he says. “They also want a certain level of quality and want to know about the ritual behind the making of the clothes – quality in their lives and also in what they buy. It’s like a process of editing: my clients just want the best.” The collection Valli designed for Mytheresa serves the retailer’s demanding high-end customers while also staying true to Valli’s DNA of fun and fabulous glamour. “It’s dresses in sorbet shades that remind you of the colours of gelato in Rome and this sense of dolce vita that you get when you arrive in Rome,” he says. “It’s very timely because people are travelling nonstop. All the airports are packed and it’s the right moment for this.” While this may be the case in Europe and the US, China is still imposing restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus and Chinese citizens are unable to travel abroad for “non-essential” reasons. “We’re going to focus on China more,” Valli says of his label, “especially online, because our historical Chinese clients, like the ones who also buy couture, would travel and buy in Paris or London, but now they can’t.” Valli counts among his fans Chinese celebrities including Angelababy and Zhang Ziyi, and entrepreneur Wendy Yu . “I love that they don’t give up their femininity, which is very modern and fresh and which I find fantastic,” he says of his Chinese and Asian clients. “They’re very disinhibited, joyful and embrace beauty and are always looking for something special, one of a kind and don’t want to be like everyone else. “If back in the day, like 50 years ago, you had these extravagant couture clients from the US, now they’re in China.” Valli’s brand is still independent and doesn’t belong to any of the luxury groups, although in 2017 Groupe Artemis, the investment arm of the holding company of the Pinault family – the owners of the Kering Group – made an investment in the label (Kering is the company behind brands including Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta). “The beautiful thing is that I’m one of a kind in the industry and that makes my company very human [scale] and not too corporate,” he says. “You don’t have the weight of a group behind you, so you can be faster and more agile. “Once [fashion critic] Suzy Menkes said that in a traffic jam of limousines Giambattista Valli is a bicycle that moves along. It’s an apt metaphor.” Valli is staying true to his DNA and building strong relationships with top-notch retailers such as Mytheresa as well as key celebrities (“I like it when celebrities come to me without obligations. I have a special relationship with the ones that I dress and I don’t dress everyone just for marketing [purposes]”). In doing so, he has built a successful business founded on the premise that no matter how the pendulum swings, beautiful clothes that make you feel like a princess for a day will always find a place in women’s closets.