Book Club: At the Emperor’s Table

Mr. Valentino loves beautiful things.

This is a point he brings home several times while we are seated on a couch that could be mistaken for a piece of modern art, discussing his new photo book, “At The Emperor’s Table,” published by Assouline and set to release this month. The panoply of exquisite imagery from the dining tables of his multiple homes is being called a celebration of luxury and beauty by its foreword writer, the great André Leon Talley.

“Fashion today is not only what you wear on your back. It’s the glass you serve your water in,” Talley says before he explains that, “When you’re in the world of Valentino, it is special. It’s not a pompous world. This was not a pompous book for me to participate in. It’s a book that is a celebration of the life of a man who loves luxury and beauty, and has high standards — and there are very few left in the world today, in the world of style and fashion.”

We’re in an apartment on 58th street replete with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Manhattan. Mr. Talley is seated to Mr. Valentino’s left, explaining with the enthusiasm and conviction of a football coach who has just won the Super Bowl that “old school is new school, and it’s good school,” to echo Mr. Valentino’s modus operandi, which includes:

Colorful tablecloths;

And underskirts;

Intimate stories about Elizabeth Taylor;

And dear, departed friend, Jackie Kennedy Onassis;

Spectacularly labored china, which, Mr. Talley calls “the poetry” of Valentino’s tables;

Strategic seating: the oldest or closest friend always sits to his right while the most important guest takes the left-side seat;

And, perhaps most importantly, a fundamental sense of respect for beauty.

Valentino reiterates one of Talley’s early points: “I was quite afraid when I came out with the book…because I thought it was a show-off book, showing my things which I’ve collected for a long, long time. And after, of course, thinking very carefully about it, I realized all the things I needed — 30, 35 and 40 years collecting one by one — [are] things I’ve always loved, so I said to myself at the end, ‘But why should I be not happy. Why should I be worried if people criticize? Why?’ Because I did all those things on my own. I bought it on my own, with my money, with my creations.”

And you believe him. There is an unflinching sense of earnestness and humility in his tone. In spite of the decadent photos that appear in his book, in spite of the lifestyle that Mr. Valentino has committed himself to, he is not just acutely self-aware but seems to be mindful of the vicissitudes of lifestyles that exist outside of his own. This is proven when he cuts Mr. Talley off while he is describing the spread for the pre-marital luncheon of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West at Mr. Valentino’s chateau to ask if we are shocked.

Shocked?

“The Russian plates, amazing food. You are not fatigued? Doing what I did, creating clothes, I put together my mind in objects and antiques, for this reason I am this way now. It’s not because I want to impress the bourgeois.”

Far more impressive, frankly, is that we aren’t fatigued. None of his anecdotes, his stories, the likening of his studied couture gowns to his extravagantly set tables register as outwardly gluttonous. Not the mention of a fruit bowl made entirely from sugar. Or the twelve ceramic swans that decorate his most important serving tables. Or the mere fact that his most casual wear includes cableknit cashmere sweaters from goats I’d guess he’s been herding on his properties and corduroy pants made from the most sophisticated woven tuft.

Maybe that’s simply because you get the sense that this corner of New York maintains the last iota of glamour left in the world we occupy, and that’s chiefly because of the suited man who sits on the couch that could be mistaken for a piece of modern art.

Photography by Oberto Gili for Assouline