Valentino the Victorious

With Paris couture in the doldrums, the world's most sought-after designer is rapidly becoming Rome's Valentino. At 35 he has an unexcelled roster of customers trooping into his salon at 24 Via Gregoriana, led by Jackie Kennedy, who these days seldom buys from anybody else. More important, he improves with age; each Valentino collection strikes fashion editors as better than the last. When he showed his spring and summer clothes in Rome this winter, he declared them "the best I've ever done" and nobody in attendance would gainsay the king of Rome. Cried Vogue: "He has become the idol of the young, a new symbol of modern luxury."

Last week Valentino and his clothes were in Manhattan, and by any . designer's standard, his visit was a triumph. "I'm a no-color man," he warned and then unleashed a bevy of models in all kinds of lacy, creamy shades of off-white. Swirling daytime dresses, gently skimming the knee, were worn with soft scarves and puffy berets. Heavily jewel-encrusted and embroidered vests gave sparkle and style to tailored white linen evening suits. Biggest hit of all was a trimly tailored, above-the-knee white coat boldly trimmed with Valentino's "V," emblazoned in brass on all four pockets.

Vatentino was in New York to help Lord & Taylor launch a collection of 22 pieces copied from his spring and summer show. The lift-off was phenomenal. Some of the originals in fact, never made it to the show; Mrs. Alan Jay Lerner made off with a $1,000 caped white dress with a jeweled belt before it hit the runway. In five days the store sold copies of more than 400 dresses ($90 to $175) and 300 coats ($160 to $495), plus hundreds of shoes and berets. Favorite accessory: a six-foot-long floating Isadora Duncan sea of bias silk twill. One item too special for mass reproduction: Valentino's hand-painted stockings, which sell Rome for $50 a pair. Reason, said Lord & Taylor, is that they are too fragile and too perishable."