It's not all fluff
Capucci, No?
Imagine a dress called 'Bougainvillea' in 32 shades of green and 45 yards of fabric. Roberto Cappuci's little masterpiece took five women eight hours a day for three months to finish. There are sketches for dresses he says "got away" from him, dresses that were too complicated for even him, the man known as "the Givenchy of Rome" to make. In a way, Capucci is the designer who got away, retiring from the relentless deadlines to the calm of his Rome atelier in 1982. There he is free to explore the endless complexities of his geometric vision in taffeta for a hadnful of faithful clients. At 69 years old, Capucci has fashion shows when and where he likes, Always in a different city, they're like exhibitions, one-man shows. The last one in 1994 was held at Vienna's Schönbrunn Castle and at Eggenberg Castle in Graz. Two years earlier Capucci showed at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin.
Maurizio Galante was a design studen at Rome's Fashions and Costume Academy in 1984 when he was sent by one of his teachers to meet Capucci. Galante spent a month and a half at the house to sketch dresses from a Capucci collection from 1972 in the archives. "There was an incredible atmosphere in his studio," he remembers. "The directress Madame Germain was very strict, and always wore bright red blush. When Mr. Capucci arrived, all the women in the atelier would stop talking. One day we spent the afternoon together and he talked to me about showing his clothes to the Empress of Japan, he was the only designer to show inside the Imperial Palace."
It was Capucci's first client, a wealthy older woman, who helped him open his atelier in Rome in 1950. And the same year he was picked as one of the designers for a seminal show of Italian fashion in Florence. Staged by Maquis Giovanni Battista Giorgini, an exporter, it was held in the Palazzo Pitti's White Room. There American buyers discovered the first generation of modern Italian designers: Capucci, Simonetta, Emilio Pucci and others. When Chrysler featured Capucci's signature nine-skirted dress in Cadillac advertisements photographed in Rome's Forum, he became a name in the U.S., dressing stars like Gloria Swanson and Marilyn Monroe. In 1956 Capucci received public congratulations from Christian Dior, and his following among fellow designers has been strong ever since. Giorgio Armani is a fan, and Geoffrey Beene calls Capucci "the finest Italian designer of the century. His clothes are in the same manner as those of Charles James: architectural art." Capucci says he admires couturiers with great personality: Yves Saint Laurent, Lacroix, Armani, Galante and Issey Miyake are favourites.
In 1962, the foreign press, led by Eugenia Shepperd, convinced him to open an atelier in Paris. It was a great success and he was the first Italian designer to be asked to crreate a fragrance. Over six years Capucci produced two separate collections, in Rome and Paris, shuttling back and forth between the two cities. But it tired him. He returned to Rome permanently in 1968.
In 1970, Capucci collaborated with Pasolini on the costumes for Silvana Mangano and Terence Stamp for Theorem. For Capucci, who says he had always wanted to dress Mangano, it was a "dream come true." The couturier and the actress became friends. "She has been my best client, the most beautiful, mysterious, and fascinating, " he says. "Until today I haven't found one who can match her."
Today he says he has finally found himself again and can create freely as he did at the start of his career. A design begins with sketches. Then he makes doll-size prototypes before a life-size model is done in white organza. Finally he chooses colours. "From fabrics, my mind and heart I want to obtain the maximum, to create lines, columes and colour combinations," he explains. "My first source of inspiration is nature, especially when it hasn't been ruined by the hands of man. Immediately after is art with all its forms of expression." Capucci's clients are hooked on his evening dresses with millefeuille layers, intricate pleating, strips of taffeta like the interior of a Christmas party cracker encircling the bust, or swirling spirals of silk which sweep around a sheath in little arabenques. But he does design daywear. "I couldn't have worked for 50 years if I hadn't also created simple, wearable clothes," he says. Capucci's complex design has never lent itself to ready-to-wear interpretations, so instead of compromising, he has always followed his instincts and remained a couturier. His favourite clients are women of means, princesses and heiresses. "Women are by nature unfaithful, that's their charm," he says. "Many clients have remained and many new come. It's like a spinning wheel."
As for the faithful ones, Capucci says they probably come back because they feel protected and advised. "In 50 years I have dressed a great quantity of women, from the world of culture, show and management. But my favourite ones are aristocrats because they have an inborn class, and no interest in following fashion, only their own personality."
Capucci is off in his own world. He's interested in archaeology and classical music and he travels extensively to India, North America and the Far East: "countries where man has laid the first stone." He comes home with ideas for his designs, his wearable sculptures. Sometimes Roberto Capucci wonders how he ended up in fashion; "Having been a student of fine arts I perhaps ended up in fashion by mistake," he says. "My dresses belong more to the art world than the world of fashion, but this has been my destiny." Rebecca Voigt
Sounds like overagressive curating if you ask me, but the website features a very cool panoramic slideshow of the exhibition, I'll try to post a few stills form it later: 
What a wonderful thread. I have to damit I'd never been familiar with his work. Nice to see, and nice to spot the parallels between his and Willhelm's. Thanks again...
He is no doubt about it a sculptor. I have heard the term "wearable sculpture" used before but then it was only tossed around--in this instance, it is really true. Beyond the color, the form is exceptional and poetic. For some reason the color doesn't bother me so much. There are only a couple of times where I feel it goes overboard and interferes with the piece--even though they are bold and garish colors, the construction and form of his (I can't even call it clothing) works are strong enough to carry it.
