“I am in love with beauty,” Valentino Garavani explains in the opening of the upcoming book Valentino: At The Emperor’s Table, which comes out in November and is pretty much the most exciting thing we’ve heard about in eons. The Assouline title is a look inside the Valentino world, with 220 illustrations by Italian photog Oberto Gili and a forward by André Leon Talley. ATL writes in his intro: “Valentino Garavani designs his luncheons and dinners, in all of his homes, the way he has created crescendos and allegros vivace throughout his forty-plus-year career as one of the greatest haute couture designers and high-fashion leaders in the world.” That’s an endorsement if there ever was one. The book is organized by residences, with a look at various table settings and recipes specific to each home. “A flan au chevre may be served on Portuguese porcelain at his ski chalet in Gstaad, while a visit to his home in London reveals a “decorating masterpiece” writes Talley. “I am very often alone and enjoying my houses,” Valentino says. “Entertaining thirty or one is the same; the food has to be on a beautiful plate. The dream came true.” This is going to be the best thing since Barbra Streisand‘s book My Passion For Design revealed a shopping mall in the basement of her Malibu home.
