Valentine grew up not far from Marseille, near the Circuit Paul Ricard race track where her father was a Formula 1 test driver and a developer, and her mother worked for Winfield, the English racing school. After a degree in geo-ethnography specialised in traditional costume, Valentine switched to fashion design at the Atelier Chardon Savard in Paris. First experiences at Maison Martin Margiela led to a job as Artistic Director of lifestyle brand Just A Dream, then in 2006, at 26 years old, she took home the womenswear prize at the Dinard Fashion Festival, spurring her to launch her own label the following year. A first Valentine Gauthier store opened in the Marais in 2009 and a decade later she moved to a bigger flagship where she has room to express a grander vision. In 2019 she won the City of Paris’s Grand Prix de la Création in the fashion category.
