Valentino to Receive the 2011 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion
On February 3, 2011, The Museum at FIT announced that Valentino will be the 2011 recipient of the The Couture Council Artistry of Fashion Award at a benefit luncheon on Wednesday September 7, 2011 at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City. The award was bestowed by the Couture Council Advisory Committee, an independent group consisting of curators, editors, and retailers. As has become the tradition, this luncheon heralds the arrival of Fall Fashion Week.
Dr. Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at FIT, announced, Valentino was chosen in recognition of his status as a world-historical figure in modern fashion, a man who has dressed every beautiful woman of the past 50 years, from Jacqueline Kennedy to Madonna. Valentinos concept of beauty is Apollonian in its classicism and perfect taste. Yet red, the color of love and passion, runs like a leitmotif through his career, asserting his passionate love of beauty. In today's world of an often debased celebrity culture, Valentinos dresses continue to assert an aristocratic ideal of art and beauty.