Italian designer Valentino Garavani loved creating outfits that made women beautiful, his partner Giancarlo Giammetti said on Tuesday, following the legend's death at the age of 93.
"He always said, 'It's not my fault, I just like beauty,'" Giammetti told journalists outside the Valentino headquarters in Rome.
The designer, who launched his fashion house in 1960, dressed some of the world's most famous women, from Elizabeth Taylor and Nancy Reagan to Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts.
He was responsible for many iconic red carpet outfits and was perhaps best known for his gowns in a vivid shade known as "Valentino red."
His legacy was that "fashion serves to embellish and not to ridicule", said Giammetti, whose business acumen helped elevate the label to global prominence.
Valentino believed that "clothes should be recognised for what they give to women, not for what the design wants to convey", he said.
"From a creative point of view, he taught us to respect women."
The designer's body will lie in state from Wednesday at the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation, next to the Valentino atelier in the historic centre of Rome.
Luca Bonilli, a 21-year-old fashion student at Rome's Belle Arti Academy, was among those paying their respects on Tuesday in front of the foundation, where red roses were laid in tribute.
Despite not knowing Valentino personally, the designer "had been a sort of mentor", he said.
"It is a great loss. Even for those who are not interested in fashion, he was an important figure," Bonilli told AFP.
And with Valentino's death coming just months after the death of another Italian great, Giorgio Armani, "there is little or nothing left" of Italian fashion today, he said.
"When many Italian stylists and designers were still alive, I sense the world of fashion was much more carefree and beautiful," he added.
Valentino's funeral will be held on Friday at the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels and of the Martyrs in the Italian capital.
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