Don’t expect retiree Valentino Garavani to step away from the spotlight. The famed fashion designer walked Sunday’s Oscar red carpet with co-host Anne Hathaway, who kicked off her four-hour wardrobe odyssey in a strapless red stunner from his fall 2002 couture collection. Later this year, Valentino will be the toast of New York Fashion Week. The Museum at FIT has announced that he is the winner of the 2011 Couture Council Artistry of Fashion Award. “Valentino was chosen in recognition of his status as a world-historical figure in modern fashion, a man who has dressed every beautiful woman of the past 50 years, from Jacqueline Kennedy to Madonna,” said Valerie Steele, director of the museum. “Valentino’s concept of beauty is Apollonian in its classicism and perfect taste. Yet red, the color of love and passion, runs like a leitmotif through his career, asserting his passionate love of beauty.” He will receive the award at a September 7 benefit luncheon at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Expect a fashionable and generous crowd (last year’s event honoring Karl Lagerfeld raised $600,000) that will again include Daphne Guinness, whose personal collection is the subject of an exhibition opening at the Museum at FIT this September. Among the past Couture Council award recipients, which are selected by an advisory committee chaired by Steele, are Dries Van Noten, Isabel Toledo, and Ralph Rucci.