“I wanted to share my method with the women in my life,” says Giambattista Valli, the Roman designer whose intricate couture techniques have found a Hollywood following in Diane Kruger, Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. Documenting the journey from concept to runway, Valli has collected photographs, mood boards and sketches of eight years’ work in a 400-page book, previewed here. The designer behind the eponymous ready-to-wear and couture labels made his Paris debut in 2005, taking inspiration from Louise Bourgeois, red-tipped flowers and, for his recent Paris Fashion Week show, Pier Paolo Pasolini. “All the people in the book come from specific chapters in my career,” explains Valli of the Rizzoli-published title, spliced with essays from muses including Francesco Clemente, Franca Sozzani and Lee Radziwill, and dedicated to his collaborator, the Italian architect and jeweler Luigi Scialanga. “It was great to do a work-in-progress book; one that has no start, and almost no end.”