Cyprium Metals (CYM:AU) has announced Capital Raise Presentation
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Former special counsel Jack Smith spent hours publicly defending the parameters of his investigation into President Donald Trump on Thursday in the face of sharp questions from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee — including one lawmaker in particular who repeatedly accused Smith of ‘spying’ on certain lawmakers.
During one of the most contentious portions of the hearing, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., pressed Smith over the so-called ‘tolling records’ Smith sought as part of the special counsel investigation, which included investigating Trump’s alleged attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Unlike wiretaps, tolling records are phone logs that reveal the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing callers, as well as the time and duration of calls. Republicans have zeroed in on the tolling records in recent months, blasting them as an aggressive tactic by Smith and an act of ‘political weaponization,’ which Smith vehemently denied.
Issa, in particular, excoriated Smith for the decision to seek the tolling records of Republicans in the House and Senate — which he said Thursday was tantamount to spying on his political ‘enemies.’
Smith, for his part, defended the tolling records as ‘common practice’ in such investigations.
‘Maybe they’re not your political enemies, but they sure as [heck] were Joe Biden’s poltiical enemies, weren’t they?’ Issa asked Smith. ‘They were Harris’s political enemies,’ he said, referring to the former vice president. ‘They were the enemies of the president — and you were their arm, weren’t you?’
‘No,’ Smith said.
‘So, you spied on the speaker of the House and these other senators and so on, and informed no one — and in fact, put a gag order in — so they couldn’t discover it,’ Issa said.
Smith attempted to respond before Issa continued.
‘Why did Congress, a separate branch that you, under the Constitution, have to respect — why is it that no one should be informed — including the judges?’ Issa pressed. ‘As you went in to spy on these people, did you mention that you were spying on, [that you were] seeking records to you could find out about when conversations occurred between the U.S. Speaker of the House and the president?’
‘Did you inform the judge?’ Issa continued. ‘Or did you hold that back?’
‘My office didn’t spy on anyone,’ Smith said, before Issa cut back in.
‘Wait a second,’ he interjected sharply. ‘The question I asked you, Mr. Smith, was pretty straightforward.’
Before Smith could respond again, the panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, interjected to address House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.
‘Mr. Chairman, would you please instruct the gentleman to allow the witness to answer the question?’ he said. ‘The witness has the right to answer the question.’
Smith previously said that the Public Integrity Section had signed off on the subpoenas, a point corroborated by previously released public records. Those records also showed that the Public Integrity Section told prosecutors to be wary of concerns lawmakers could raise about the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which gives Congress members added protections.
The subpoenas to the phone companies were accompanied by gag orders blocking the lawmakers from learning about the existence of the subpoenas for at least one year.
Smith previously told the House lawmakers in a closed-door hearing that the D.C. federal court, which authorized the gag orders, would not have been aware that they applied to Congress members.
‘I don’t think we identified that, because I don’t think that was Department policy at the time,’ Smith said.
Asked during the earlier deposition about who should be held accountable for lawmakers who felt that the seizure of a narrow set of their phone data was a constitutional violation, Smith said Trump should be held accountable.
‘These records are people, in the case of the Senators, Donald Trump directed his co-conspirators to call these people to further delay the proceedings,’ Smith said.
‘He chose to do that. If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators, we would have gotten toll records for Democratic Senators. So responsibility for why these records, why we collected them, that’s — that lies with Donald Trump,’ he said at the time.
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Former special counsel Jack Smith’s hearing on Capitol Hill kicked off with a reminder from Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, of the controversial 2022 raid of then-former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Jordan revealed that Barron Trump’s room was among the areas searched.
Smith appeared in a Capitol Hill hearing on Thursday in which he was questioned about his prosecutions of Trump. He previously testified about the investigations in a closed-door deposition.
‘And then there was the raid on President Trump’s home. You know, where they searched Barron’s room and the first lady’s closet? In our deposition with Steven D’Antuono, head of the FBI Washington field office, he told us none of the normal process, none of the normal protocol was followed in the investigation,’ Jordan said.
The chairman said that D’Antuono had relayed that the first issue with the raid was that it was run out of the FBI D.C. field office rather than the one in Miami.
Additionally, Jordan said that D’Antuono claimed he and others in the FBI Washington field office recommended that Trump be notified before they carried out the search, ‘or at least when they got there, before they start the search, call the president’s lawyers, ask them to come there and meet them.’ According to Jordan, the Department of Justice (DOJ) rejected the recommendations.
‘On November 18th, 2022, three days after President Trump announces he’s running for president, Attorney General Garland names Jack Smith special counsel. One of the first things Mr. Smith does is put on his team the very people responsible for the raid on President Trump’s home,’ Jordan said.
The raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence sparked controversy about the handling of the search and what was found during it. At the time, Trump accused the Biden administration of using ‘Third World’ tactics.
‘The Biden administration invaded the home of their chief political opponent, who is absolutely destroying him and everybody else in the polls,’ Trump said in 2022 during a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Trump continued, ‘On a phony pretext from a highly political magistrate who they hand-picked late in the evening, just days before the break-in, and trampled upon my rights and civil liberties as if our country that we love so much were a third world nation, we’re like a third world nation.’
Trump told the crowd at the rally that the FBI had gone through then-former first lady Melania Trump’s closet drawers and ‘even did a deep and ugly search of the room of my sixteen-year-old son.’
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Copper’s role in the global economy is entering a new phase.
A sweeping new outlook from S&P Global frames the metal as a central bottleneck of the electrified future, projecting that global copper demand will rise by roughly 50 percent over the next 15 years, from about 28 million metric tons in 2025 to 42 million metric tons by 2040.
The challenge, the report warns, is that supply is nowhere near positioned to keep pace.
Without substantial new investment in mining and processing, S&P Global estimates the market could face a copper shortfall of as much as 10 million metric tons by 2040.
Four vectors driving demand
S&P Global groups copper demand growth into four distinct but overlapping “vectors” that together explain the scale and persistence of the coming surge.
At the core of the demand surge is electrification. The research firm expects global electricity consumption to rise by nearly 50 percent by 2040, outpacing growth in any other form of energy.
Copper is essential at every stage of that system, from power generation and transmission to end use in buildings, vehicles, and industrial equipment. What has changed in recent years, however, is the pace of electrification and the emergence of new demand vectors layered on top of traditional uses.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the most recent and most visible of those new forces. While AI research has been underway for decades, its commercial breakout in late 2022 triggered what many analysts now describe as an “AI arms race,” centered on massive investments in data centers, chips and supporting power infrastructure.
Data centers are among the most electricity-intensive facilities in the modern economy, and copper is critical to their wiring, cooling systems, and grid connections.
S&P Global estimates that data centers could account for as much as 14 percent of total US electricity demand by 2030, up from about 5 percent today.
The knock-on effects are substantial. New data centers require expanded transmission, additional power generation capacity, and increasingly sophisticated cooling systems—all of which are copper-intensive.
Despite the attention AI is drawing, it is not the single largest driver of copper consumption. Core economic demand, often referred to as “Dr. Copper” because of the metal’s sensitivity to economic health, remains the backbone of the market.
Construction, machinery, appliances, transportation, and conventional power generation together still account for the largest share of copper use globally. S&P Global forecasts that this traditional demand will grow at about 2 percent annually through 2040, rising from roughly 18 million metric tons in 2025 to around 23 million metric tons.
Much of that growth is expected to come from developing economies. One striking example cited in the report is cooling: the developing world is projected to add as many as two billion new air conditioners by 2040, each requiring copper.
In advanced economies such as the US, reshoring of manufacturing and grid upgrades are also contributing to rising copper intensity.
The energy transition forms the second major pillar of demand growth. Electric vehicles (EVs) require nearly three times as much copper as conventional internal combustion cars, while solar and wind installations are heavily copper-dependent.
In 2025, more than 90 percent of new global power generation capacity came from solar and wind, according to S&P Global. Battery storage, now a growing feature of electricity systems, adds another layer of copper demand.
A fourth, less discussed but increasingly important vector is defense. Rising geopolitical tensions and the electrification of military systems are pushing governments to invest heavily in advanced equipment and infrastructure.
Further, defense-related demand is considered relatively inelastic given national security priorities, and adds further pressure to an already tightening copper balance.
Supply constraints tightens the outlook
Geographically, the demand picture is uneven. S&P Global expects China and the broader Asia-Pacific region to account for about 60 percent of incremental copper demand growth through 2040, driven by electric vehicles, renewable power, grid expansion and continued industrialization.
North America and Europe are also poised for meaningful increases, particularly linked to AI data centers, clean energy deployment and electrification of transport. The Middle East, meanwhile, is forecast to post one of the fastest growth rates in copper demand, reflecting ambitious infrastructure and energy investment plans.
On the supply side, the outlook is far more constrained. Existing copper mines are aging, ore grades are declining, and new discoveries are becoming harder and more expensive to develop.
S&P Global notes that the average copper mine now takes about 17 years to move from discovery to production, with permitting delays, environmental reviews and community consultations accounting for much of that timeline.
Without major new projects, primary mined copper supply is expected to peak around 2030 and then begin to decline.
Recycling will help, but it is not a silver bullet. Even under aggressive assumptions, secondary supply is projected to meet at most about a quarter to a third of total copper demand by 2040. That leaves a substantial gap that can only be filled through new mine development or significant expansions of existing operations.
Overall, the report furthers a crucial message going forward: copper is no longer just a cyclical industrial metal, but a strategic asset tied to the future of energy, technology, and national security.
That demand trajectory, however, is colliding with structural constraints on supply. Mining remains the indispensable foundation of the supply chain, but geology alone will not determine outcomes.
S&P Global concludes that addressing this imbalance will require greater regional diversification and multilateral cooperation to build a more resilient and environmentally robust copper system.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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Police across four South American jurisdictions have carried out their first coordinated cross-border operation against illegal gold mining, arresting nearly 200 suspects and seizing cash, gold, mercury and mining equipment.
The operation, known as Guyana Shield, brought together law enforcement and prosecutors from Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana and Suriname in December and involved more than 24,500 checks on vehicles and individuals across remote border regions.
Authorities said the effort resulted in 198 arrests, including the detention in Guyana of three men suspected of gold smuggling and money laundering after they were found carrying unprocessed gold and about US$590,000 in cash.
Investigators allege the three suspects are linked to a major organized crime group with possible connections to a prominent Guyanese gold exporting firm. The case is now the subject of ongoing financial and criminal investigations.
Interpol, which supported the operation, said the surge in global gold prices has fueled a rapid expansion of illegal mining activity, particularly in environmentally sensitive regions of Latin America.
Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza said the illicit gold trade has become a major funding source for criminal networks operating across borders.
“The surge in international gold prices in recent years has resulted in increased illegal gold mining making it the fastest-growing revenue stream for organized crime groups, including in Latin America,” Urquiza said. “At INTERPOL, we are committed to working with our partners to disrupt those networks and prevent more damage to this remote and environmentally fragile region.”
A central focus of the operation was the movement of mercury, a toxic substance widely used in illegal gold extraction to separate gold from other metals. Police in Guyana and Suriname seized cylinders of mercury valued at more than US$60,000 which were being transported by bus and concealed inside solar panels.
Mercury contamination poses severe risks to both ecosystems and human health, particularly in riverine and Indigenous communities.
The crackdown also featured so-called “mirror operations,” with officers from Brazil, French Guiana and Suriname conducting simultaneous checks on opposite banks of the Oyapock and Maroni rivers, which form key border crossings in the region.
These coordinated inspections targeted riverbank supply stores that sell fuel, equipment and chemicals used in gold mining and that, in some cases, are suspected of facilitating smuggling.
Operation Guyana Shield was further supported by EL PACCTO 2.0, a European Union-backed cooperation program focused on transnational organized crime, alongside INTERPOL and the Dutch Police’s High Impact Environmental Crime team.
The operation builds on earlier enforcement actions targeting illegal gold mining in the Amazon basin. In November last year, Brazilian authorities, with INTERPOL support, dismantled hundreds of illegal dredges along the Madeira River in what officials described as a major blow to mining syndicates operating in the region.
The operation, coordinated by the Amazon International Police Cooperation Centre, disabled 277 dredges valued at an estimated US$6.8 million.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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House Democrats are largely mum about whether they’ll help Republicans advance a pair of contempt resolutions against former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday.
The House Oversight Committee is meeting at 10 a.m. to weigh a pair of reports on holding the Clintons in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas in the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein probe. What’s likely to be hours of debate will be followed by votes on whether to tee up those reports as House-wide votes on resolutions referring the former first couple to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal prosecution.
The resolutions are likely to advance, at least along party lines. But two Democrats on the committee who spoke with Fox News Digital on Tuesday were careful to avoid making concrete decisions before the pivotal votes.
‘Right now, we should all be focused on releasing the Epstein files,’ Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told Fox News Digital. ‘After the files are released, call in the Clintons, and they should testify, as should anyone. But it’s premature to be calling in people to testify when the files haven’t been released.’
Khanna, along with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., led a successful effort to force a vote on mandating that the DOJ release nearly all of its Epstein files.
The DOJ has yet to produce more than a fraction of the documents, however, more than a month after the deadline set by Congress.
When asked directly how he would vote regarding the Clintons on Wednesday, Khanna said, ‘I would say that they need to come in after the files are released.’
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., a first-term member of the committee, told Fox News Digital when asked how he’ll vote, ‘We’ll see how they’re treating all of the other people who have not complied completely with the committee, because I think what they’ve started doing is making this partisan.’
The Clintons were two of 10 people subpoenaed to appear before the committee after a unanimous committee vote to launch the investigation.
To date, however, just one of those original 10 people — former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr — has appeared in person. Former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Azar was also deposed pursuant to a separate subpoena.
But the Clintons are the only two so far who Republicans have pursued contempt charges against, arguing they have repeatedly refused to work with the committee in good faith on scheduling their depositions. The Clintons’ lawyers said the subpoenas are not legally valid.
‘It should be an interesting hearing, because if they’re going to hold the Clintons in contempt, I’m interested to hear if they’ll hold anyone else in contempt, including Republicans in this administration,’ Subramanyam said.
Multiple requests for comment to the remaining 19 Democrats on the committee went unanswered on Tuesday.
That includes Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, who did not attend either of the panel’s scheduled depositions with the Clintons in January.
Rep. Emily Randall, D-Wash., another member of the panel, even waved Fox News Digital off during an attempt to ask about her thoughts on the Clinton contempt effort. She claimed she was engaged in an ‘intense’ conversation with a congressional aide.
Garcia had previously accused House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., of hypocrisy in trying to hold the Clintons accountable while not pushing harder to enforce the subpoena aimed at forcing the DOJ to release all of its Epstein files, which it has not yet done.
‘I think it’s incredibly hypocritical for James Comer to go out and try to hold in contempt his political enemies while [Attorney General Pam Bondi] is actively breaking the law, and he refuses to hold her in contempt,’ Garcia told MS NOW last week.
But in his opening remarks ahead of the committee meeting, Comer is expected to argue that it would be Democrats who are acting hypocritical if they do not vote to hold House-wide contempt votes.
‘We’ve offered flexibility on scheduling. The response we received was not cooperation, but defiance, marked by repeated delays, excuses, and obstruction,’ Comer will say, according to remarks obtained by Fox News Digital. ‘Today, the Clintons must be held accountable for their actions. And Democrats must support these measures, or they will be exposed as hypocrites.’
Neither of the Clintons have been implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
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Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — a Republican who left office earlier this year after a falling out with President Donald Trump last year — poured cold water on the president’s ambitions to add Greenland to the U.S.
‘We are approaching $40 Trillion in debt and Social Security is going to be insolvent by 2033. Is anyone even talking about how much it’s going to cost the American people to take over Greenland?’ Greene asked in a Tuesday post on X.
‘Saying it’s ‘for your safety’ is not sufficient. We’ve heard that one before and it didn’t turn out so well,’ she added.
The U.S. national debt is more than $38.46 trillion, according to fiscaldata.treasury.gov.
Trump has said the U.S. needs to acquire Greenland as a matter of national security.
‘The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building,’ he asserted in part of a Truth Social post last week.
‘China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it,’ he declared in part of another Truth Social post last week.
‘Nobody will touch this sacred piece of Land, especially since the National Security of the United States, and the World at large, is at stake,’ he asserted. ‘Now, because of The Golden Dome, and Modern Day Weapons Systems, both Offensive and Defensive, the need to ACQUIRE is especially important.’
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Laramide Resources (TSX:LAM,OTCQX:LMRXF) has pulled out of a greenfield uranium exploration venture in Kazakhstan, citing policy changes that it says have effectively shut the door on economically viable foreign investment in the country’s uranium sector.
The Toronto-based company announced on Tuesday (January 20) it has terminated its option agreement with privately held Aral Resources for the Chu-Sarysu Basin project, ending its involvement in what it had previously described as one of the world’s most prospective under explored uranium regions.
The option agreement, which was signed in September 2024, gave Laramide access to 22 exploration licences covering more than 5,500 square kilometres in the Chu-Sarysu Basin. The region hosts several of Kazatomprom’s largest producing mines and is known for geology suitable for low-cost, in-situ recovery uranium deposits.
Laramide had been funding early-stage exploration work since late 2024 and was preparing a 15,000-metre, multi-rig drill program that was scheduled to begin in the second half of 2025.
That program never got off the ground. Laramide said delays in securing drilling permits from regional authorities meant no drilling took place as planned in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Although the final permits were granted on December 24, the regulatory landscape shifted almost immediately afterward. 2 days later, Kazakhstan’s president signed into law amendments to the Subsoil Use Code that materially alter the economics of uranium exploration for new entrants.
Under the revised framework, Kazatomprom is granted priority rights over prospective uranium areas, stricter minimum ownership thresholds in new production agreements, and enhanced control over extensions, reserve increases, and additional exploration at producing deposits.
Laramide said those changes, combined with higher holding costs following an earlier increase in annual property taxes, undermine the investment rationale for continuing exploration in the country. The company has ceased all funding related to the project with immediate effect.
“Motivated by an effort to address, and ideally reverse, the obvious and severe decline in the resource base of Kazatomprom, their national uranium company, it appears Kazakhstan may have scored a spectacular own goal with their recent de facto nationalisation of future uranium exploration in country,” Marc Henderson, Laramide’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.
“However, in what may be a world’s first, Kazakhstan appears to have moved pre-emptively to ensure national ownership and control of any new uranium discoveries before they are actually even made,” Henderson added.
Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer, has acknowledged the legislative changes and framed them as measures to improve subsoil use in the hydrocarbon and uranium sectors.
In a statement outlining the amendments, the company highlighted new provisions that raise the minimum ownership stake required in new uranium production agreements to more than 75 percent, up from 50 percent previously, and impose additional conditions tied to technology transfer for extensions and reserve increases.
For Laramide, the company said it will now focus entirely on advancing its two development-stage uranium assets: the Churchrock-Crownpoint project in New Mexico and the Westmoreland project in Queensland, Australia.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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Commodities giant BHP (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BHP) has published an operational review for the half year of 2025, highlighting celebratory results at its copper and iron ore operations, including Australia.
BHP Chief Executive Officer Mike Henry attributed the positive price environment while recognising the company’s achievements, citing that copper was up 32 percent while iron ore was 4 percent higher.
Escondida, BHP’s flagship copper operation located in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, was said to have achieved record concentrator throughput.
The Chilean project is regarded as the world’s largest copper concentrate and cathodes producer, displaying a production record of 644,000 kilotonnes.
“Antamina has also lifted its production guidance, and Spence and Copper South Australia are tracking to plan, with Copper South Australia achieving record refined gold output,” Henry added.
The company’s South Australian copper assets include the Olympic Dam, Carrapateena, and Prominent Hill projects, which were recently highlighted in a copper outlook and review by the South Australian Government.
“BHP is the largest producer of copper in the world, and we expect to grow our copper base from 1.7 million tonnes to around 2.5 million tonnes per annum,” said BHP COO Edgar Basto in an October 2025 statement.
For iron ore, BHP reported that it achieved record first half production and shipments at its Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO) operation.
WAIO’s production rose 1 percent compared to its previous record of the same period, having a total of 146.6 million tonnes of iron ore in the half-year to December 31.
Volumes from BHP’s 50-50 Brazilian joint venture Samarco were also highlighted, rising as a result of strong operational performance at the second concentrator following its restart at the end of H1 FY25.
Main dam commissioning at Samarco is advanced and scheduled for completion by 2029.
In a separate announcement, BHP updated its cost estimate for Stage 1 of its Jansen potash project, which is said to be on track for production in mid-2027.
From the previously estimated range of US$7.0 billion, the cost now stands at US$7.4 billion (including contingencies). The initial estimate of the investment cost in August 2021 was US$5.7 billion.
“As announced in July 2025, these cost increases have been driven by inflationary and real cost escalation pressures, design development and scope changes and lower productivity outcomes,” BHP said.
The mining giant said that it is entering the second half of financial year 2026 “with strong operating momentum.”
Half-year financial results of BHP are scheduled to come out on February 17.
“We’re investing for the decade ahead, with a significant copper growth pipeline and a pathway to approximately 2 million tonnes of attributable copper production in the 2030s.”
Securities Disclosure: I, Gabrielle de la Cruz, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
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ROME — Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani has died, his foundation said Monday.
Usually known only by his first name, Valentino was 93, and had retired in 2008.
Founder of the eponymous brand, Valentino scaled the heights of haute couture, created a business empire and introduced a new color to the fashion world, the ‘Valentino Red.’
‘Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,’ the foundation said on Instagram.
He will lie in state Wednesday and Thursday, while the funeral will take place in Rome on Friday, it added.
Valentino was ranked alongside Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld as the last of the great designers from an era before fashion became a global, highly commercial industry run as much by accountants and marketing executives as the couturiers.
Lagerfeld died in 2019, while Armani died in September.
Valentino was adored by generations of royals, first ladies and movie stars, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts and Queen Rania of Jordan, who swore the designer always made them look and feel their best.
“I know what women want,” he once remarked. “They want to be beautiful.”
Never one for edginess or statement dressing, Valentino made precious few fashion faux-pas throughout his nearly half-century-long career, which stretched from his early days in Rome in the 1960s through to his retirement in 2008.
His fail-safe designs made Valentino the king of the red carpet, the go-to man for A-listers’ awards ceremony needs.
His sumptuous gowns have graced countless Academy Awards, notably in 2001, when Roberts wore a vintage black and white column to accept her best actress statue. Cate Blanchett also wore Valentino — a one-shouldered number in butter-yellow silk — when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2004.
Valentino was also behind the long-sleeved lace dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore for her wedding to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Kennedy and Valentino were close friends for decades, and for a spell, the one-time U.S. first lady wore almost exclusively Valentino.
He was also close to Diana, Princess of Wales, who often donned his sumptuous gowns.
Beyond his signature orange-tinged shade of red, other Valentino trademarks included bows, ruffles, lace and embroidery; in short, feminine, flirty embellishments that added to the dresses’ beauty and hence to that of the wearers.
Perpetually tanned and always impeccably dressed, Valentino shared the lifestyle of his jet-set patrons. In addition to his 152-foot yacht and an art collection including works by Picasso and Miro, the couturier owned a 17th-century chateau near Paris with a garden said to boast more than a million roses.
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