The Eternal City, a sprawling necropolis of discarded empires, currently holding its breath for a man who achieved the singular feat of making the unimaginably wealthy look slightly less like the lizards they are. Valentino, a name that echoes through the marble halls of history not with the weight of a Caesar or the gravity of a Galileo, but with the rustle of overpriced silk, has finally exited the stage. And predictably, the world’s most professional mourners have descended upon Rome to perform their favorite ritual: the public display of expensive grief. It is a fitting end for a man who turned the act of getting dressed into a liturgy for the godless.

The headlines scream of 'generations of royals' and 'movie stars' paying their respects. One must wonder what, exactly, they are respecting. Is it the cut of a hem? The precise shade of 'Valentino Red' that supposedly signifies passion but mostly just signals a tax bracket? To the unwashed masses, this is presented as a cultural milestone, a moment of profound loss. In reality, it is a high-stakes networking event where the currency is crocodile tears and the dress code is 'mourning-chic.' These people—from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts—didn't just wear his clothes; they used his talent as a shield to hide the hollow void where a personality might otherwise reside.

Politics and celebrity have always been the twin faces of the same fraudulent coin, and nowhere is this more evident than in the funeral of a fashion designer. A First Lady is, after all, little more than a mannequin for the state, a decorative appendage designed to humanize the bureaucratic monster she stands beside. By dressing these figures, Valentino didn't just create fashion; he manufactured the illusion of grace for those who possess none. He was the chief architect of the 'glamour' that keeps the plebeians distracted while the world’s resources are systematically looted. If you can make a tyrant’s wife look like a saint in chiffon, you aren’t just a designer; you’re a propagandist.

And then there is Rome itself. There is a delicious, if unintentional, irony in holding this spectacle in a city built on the ruins of actual significance. As the mourners glide through the streets in their darkened sedans, they pass the coliseums and forums where men once debated the nature of the soul and the structure of law. Now, those same streets are clogged with people debating whether a specific fall collection was 'transcendental.' We have moved from the sublime to the sartorial, from the philosophical to the superficial. The decay of the West isn't signaled by a sudden collapse, but by the fact that we treat the death of a dressmaker with more solemnity than the death of an idea.

Let us not ignore the sycophants in the press, either. They speak of his 'legacy' as if he discovered penicillin or brokered a lasting peace in the Middle East. His legacy is a series of very expensive rags that will eventually end up in the back of a closet or a climate-controlled museum vault, gathering dust alongside the egos of the people who wore them. The fashion industry is a cycle of planned obsolescence, a treadmill of manufactured desire that convinces the insecure that they are one purchase away from relevance. Valentino was simply the most refined pusher of this particular narcotic.

Consider the 'universality' of his name. In a world of complex problems and nuanced suffering, we have collectively agreed to simplify our vocabulary down to the branding of a single man. It is a linguistic white flag. We can’t remember the names of our representatives or the details of the latest geopolitical catastrophe, but we can all recognize a 'Valentino.' It is the ultimate triumph of the shallow over the substantial. For the Right, he represents the pinnacle of success—selling useless baubles to the elite. For the Left, he is a cultural icon, a performative hero of 'art' that requires no actual intellect to appreciate. Both sides are currently weeping into their thousand-dollar handkerchiefs, united in their shared worship of the aesthetic over the ethical.

In the end, this funeral is the ultimate Valentino production: perfectly staged, beautifully lit, and entirely devoid of substance. The elite gather to weep because, in the death of their favorite designer, they see the eventual death of their own relevance. They are terrified of a world where they aren't draped in the finest fabrics, a world where they might be forced to stand on their own merits rather than the craftsmanship of an Italian tailor. As the red silk is folded away and the black veils are lifted, the truth remains: we are a species that has mastered the art of looking good while doing nothing, and Valentino was our patron saint. Rome didn't burn today, but it certainly looked fabulous while it smoldered under the weight of its own vanity.