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PARIS - Back in 1950, when Valentino moved from Voghera, Italy to Paris to start his fashion career, he struggled to secure working papers. But on Thursday the designer received France's Legion d'Honneur. A few days before, Valentino mused about his journey between those two milestones. "The French have always been very nice with me," he said, sitting in his office overlooking the Place Vendme.
Dreaming of fashion in Voghera, the 17-year-old Valentino perfected his French at the local Berlitz center and convinced his parents to let him move to the French capital, where he took drawing and design courses at the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne in 1950. "My parents were very courageous to let a boy of 17 go to France," he says. "It's like today if your child asked to go to Shanghai." The gamble paid off. After nine months of training, he landed a job at Jean Desss, where he worked for several years before defecting to Guy Laroche.
In those days, Valentino lived something of la vie boheme in two tiny, connected chambres de bonne on the top floor of a beautiful old building on Rue de Rennes. "One room was oval because it was under the domed roof, and I had a little view," he recalls. "I did all my decoration at the marche aux puces, where I found a Napoleon III table. It was very charming."
But Valentino didn't indulge in Paris'...