Elio Fiorucci, one of the most iconic fashion designers and innovative retailers of the Swinging 1960’s, died on Monday in Milan. Fiorucci had a passionate obsession with everything trendy and British in the disco era and when he opened his very first store in Milan, it served as his vision of an outpost of the best of London. It carried the fashions of leading designers such as Barbara Hulanicki’s BIBA and Ossie Clark but he also packed the store with outrageous ephemera and novelty items such as gold-lurex cowboy boots, rag rugs and teapots with the Union jack emblazoned on them. He also added American classics T-shirts and jeans.
When he expanded his retail chain globally in the
1970’s with flagships in London and New York he reversed his merchandising
concept and as well as supporting the up and coming edgy designers of the day
such Betsy Johnson and Anna Sui, he filled the stores with never-seen-before
ethnic clothing such as Afghan shaggy coats and Brazilian thongs. Fiorucci may not have started the use of
leopard prints for everything but they, and camouflage, became totally synonymous
with his look at that time.
An energetic entrepreneur with a dramatic flair for
attracting the most fashionable crowd of the moment, he was the first retailer
to ever install a DJ playing music and he turned his Store on NY ‘s East 59th
Street into something approaching a daytime version of the infamous Studio 54 Club. He is also credited with being the first
one to introduce skinny jeans to the world.
Fiorucci sold his retail empire to the Japanese brand
Edwin in 1990, which he very soon came to regret. His attempt to reestablish a business in NY a
decade later failed, but then in 2004 he established ‘Love Therapy' a new line
of women’s and children’s clothing for Gruppo Coin a mass-market Italian
retailer.
queerguru spoke to Barbara Hulaniki this afternoon who said 'Fiorucci put Italy on the HIP Fashion map …he was an amazing fashion showman with endless ideas in his shop in the Galleria Passarella in Milan. He was the very first designer to put jeans on the fashion map…today there are vast departments all over the world of fashion jeans ……………he distributed Biba cosmetics for us in Europe …………after we lost Biba I worked in his amazing design officesand learnt so much from him and his enthusiasm for new ideas…I miss him so much!'
Fiorucci’s legacy will be for the crucial part
he played with his keen eye and energy for being such a totally fearless
merchandiser when fashion retailing was so adventurous, and experimental. He was one of the pioneers who thought that fashion was an integral part of lifestyle, but even more, that it should be both fun and completely accessible, as indicated by the twin-winged cherubs that became his brand
logo. The strange thing is that this
larger than life designer that made fashion so colorful and almost eccentric
was himself a very subdued and understated dresser.
Elio Fiorucci : an iconic fashion giant : June 10, 1935 - July 20, 2015
