Elio Fiorucci

Elio Fiorucci

Fashion designer, entrepreneur, talent scout, trendsetter, and among the world's first mass communication gurus: all these terms describe Fiorucci. The focus of the exhibit Elio Fiorucci: Fashion Jeans Inventor Histoire, at Studio Art Centers International (SACI) until February 12, Fiorucci is foremost a fashion visionary. ‘After introducing mini-

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Thu 28 Jan 2010 1:00 AM

Fashion
designer, entrepreneur, talent scout, trendsetter, and among the world’s first
mass communication gurus: all these terms describe Fiorucci.

The focus
of the exhibit Elio Fiorucci: Fashion Jeans Inventor Histoire, at Studio Art
Centers International (SACI) until February 12, Fiorucci is foremost a fashion
visionary. ‘After introducing mini-skirts to Italy,
Elio Fiorucci found a way of selling America to Americans.’ He was the
first designer to transform the work-wear jean into a tight-fitting fashion
must that accentuated the woman’s body.

‘No other
piece of clothing is as sensual on a woman than a pair of slim-fitting jeans. A
woman in well-fitted jeans looks almost like she’s walking around nude,’
Fiorucci quipped at the inauguration of the show at SACI. In a room filled with
Italian admirers and American students the Milan-born designer spoke about his
greatest fashion inventions and his experiences in New York’s Studio 54 era,
where he rubbed elbows and worked with modern America’s most renowned artists,
musicians and actors, among them Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Madonna.

Fiorucci
opened his first store in Milan
in 1967. Within three years, he was distributing his brand across Europe, South
America and Japan and became
one of the first Italian designers to bring the Made in Italy label to
the rest of the world. 

In 1976, he teamed up with
Valentino’s model-maker, Mario Morelli, and invented the world’s first
‘fashion’ jean for women. The jeans were so popular that over 1,200,000 pairs
were sold in the first year on the market. That same year, he opened his first
flagship store in New York,
on East 59th Street,
and introduced the brand to American trendsetters of the disco age.

The store
soon became the place to be, attracting such varied customers as the famed
figures of New York’s underground, like Warhol (who used the store to launch
his magazine Interview), designer Marc Jacobs and graffiti artist Keith
Haring tohigh-society personalities, among them Jackie Onassis, Lauren Bacall,
the King of Spain and Gloria Vanderbilt. Anybody who was somebody went to
Fiorucci to shop, be seen or just hang out.

Indeed
Fiorucci New York
was more than a store: it was world’s first ‘lifestyle’ concept store, selling
not only clothing and accessories but also vintage items, music, books and home
furnishings. With its frequent art exhibits, book signings, performances and
parties, it soon was known as the ‘daytime Studio 54.’

In 1979,
Fiorucci used the newly in-vented fabric Lycra to create stretch jeans. In the
70s and 80s, he collaborated with many popular designers and brands, including
Jean-Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood and Agent Provocateur.

After selling Fiorucci to a
Japanese company in the 1990s, he decided to launch his own brand, called Love
Therapy. Today, he also designs the clothing for his own children’s label, Baby
Angel, sold at the department store Oviesse.

In addition
to his fashion inventions, Fiorucci’s advertisements also earned iconic status,
and the SACI exhibit features a selection of the Fiorucci’s historic
advertisements, some of which Oliviero Toscani shot at his ranch in Sterpaia, Tuscany.
Other Toscani ads put the two-angels logo alongside models in skin-tight jeans
wearing fluffy pink handcuffs, Brazilian thongs, camouflage and leopard-skin
prints; still others show women in provocatively tight jeans and latex pants.
Such ads, and others with fluorescent colors and breakthrough graphics, ensured
the Fiorucci brand a place in design and retail history.

 

 

When TF spoke with
Elio Fiorucci at the exhibit opening, he talked about fashion, Florence and more.

 

Tell me about the exhibit here at SACI.

 

The exhibit is an anthology of the things that we have done over the years,
especially jeans. We wanted to emphasize the jeans because jeans are, by far,
the most revolutionary piece of youth fashion in the last 20 years. They
changed fashion; they really changed everything.

 

I’m very proud to have been the
one who transformed this garment from a work garment into a ‘fashion jean’ in
the 1970s. We softened the denim and gave it a more feminine cut. And today,
the jeans you see worn in the streets were born from this idea.  

 

Why did you decide to bring the exhibit to SACI in Florence?

 

Laura [Villani], the curator, had the idea of holding
the exhibit while I was here showing my collection at Pitti Bimbo. 

 

Do you visit Florence
often?

 

Yes, I come to Florence
a lot. Now, for example, we are showing our collection at Pitti Bimbo. Florence is a big fashion
capital; it’s always been a fashion capital. Our Made in Italy fashions
were born here. The first American buyers came here, to Florence, to select clothing from the
showrooms. When the showrooms moved to Milan,
it became the capital of Italian fashion. Historically, however, Florence was the center
of Italian fashion.

 

I love Florence. It’s an international city. And
like all tourist cities, it’s absolutely fascinating. Moreover, the food is
fantastic and it has a rich cultural atmosphere. I think that half of the human
race, or maybe one-third, would want to live in Florence.

 

How can the city further promote fashion?

 

I think that the city is already doing some very
important things. For example, Pitti Immagine is a huge success. The two people
that run Pitti are young and they were given the huge responsibility of running
the Pitti trade fairs. I must say that they are doing it very, very well. I am
convinced that they are even better at hosting fashion fairs than the Milanese.
And everyone else says so, too!

 

What does the city need to be more forward looking?

 

Florence is the cradle of
Italian culture, even the root of Italian language, so it’s inevitable that it
has a tendency to look back and preserve what it has. I don’t think that
anything is missing. I think that perhaps with more investment to modernize
schools and educational opportunities, it could become the capital of
education.

 

The time you spent in New York
must have been an exciting and important period for you.

 

Yes, I was lucky enough to meet great people there, like Andy Warhol. Go on
YouTube and search with the words ‘Andy Warhol’, ‘Fiorucci’ and ‘Truman
Capote’: you’ll see a video from the 70s of Warhol signing copies of his
magazine Interview in the Fiorucci store. He fell in love with Fiorucci
because he really expected something modern and new like Fiorucci to come out
of Italy.
We eventually became great friends.

 

Tell us about the Fiorucci store in New
York.

 

At
the time, we were among the first with a store in New York. When we opened, the only other
Italian brands there were Gucci and Ferragamo. Our store was designed by Ettore
Sottsass, and all of New York
come to see it. It became an event. It was also very important because it showed
that Italy
was able to launch new ideas and new fashions; this was a big part of our
success. That’s the greatest thing we did; we showed the world a ‘new’ Italy, an Italy that could still set trends.
This is what makes me most proud. 

 

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