London, England - Vogue Festival 2014 with Valentino Garavani

On Saturday I attended the Vogue Festival 2014 at the Southbank Centre on the Thames here in London. The two-day event, sponsored by Harrods, was filled with interviews and discussions with some of the world's biggest fashion icons, as well as workshops, performances, makeovers and book signing sessions.

Here shoe legend Manolo Blahnik signs copies of his book:

Make-up artists and hair stylists were on hand for beauty makeovers ...

The Vogue Shop was filled with books, posters, jewelry and other goodies ...

Harrods was on hand to whip up green smoothies ...

And the main event on Saturday evening was special guest Valentino Garavani in an hour-long talk with Alexandra Shulman, Editor in Chief of British Vogue:

Valentino spoke about the origin of his favorite color, Valentino red, (inspired by the many women dressed in red at an opera he attended in Spain), his love for London (where he claims you can find the best dressed men in the world), his penchant for gardening (roses being his favorite), his five pugs (he started out with one and when she had puppies they were so cute he decided to keep them all), and his movie The Last Emperor (which he originally hated because it showed him as "hysterical and screaming").

Here Valentino shares his advice on how best to live life (more of a sound bite than a visual, sorry):

"To believe in what you have, to appreciate what life gives you, to try to be optimistic, this is a very good thing, and ... to be happy."