Romeo Gigli (1949-)

After being left of both parents at the beginning of adulthood, he decided to leave the Faculty of Architecture in Florence and start traveling for about 10 years, venturing all over Asia, South America and Africa. For him it is the journey was a form of escape from pain and reality, dazzled by the multiplicity of things to see and to know. He began to collect fabrics and costumes, which he personally wore: in 1977, Gigli's radical look, which included small trousers and jackets made of Indian fabrics and tailor-made in London, attracted so much attention that he became a tailor's consultant Piero Dimitri.
Back in Italy, he launched the first independent collection for autumn / winter 1983/1984. After years of misunderstanding, it has become the symbol of a new fashion trend, aimed at freeing the female body from rigid forms and obsolete structures: simple and clean lines in black and soft tones with an almost monastic quality, called by the then press " minimalist street-wear". A collaboration with Carla Sozzani and her husband provided him with the resources to expand his collection for international sales in 1985. His works of the time were often compared to new projects in Japanese fashion (led by Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons).
Over the years, his message has become increasingly cultured and sublimated: in 1986, when Christian Lacroix reintroduced the pouf skirt, reminiscent of the late eighteenth century, the dirndl skirts by Gigli and the cumbersome overlapping dresses recalled instead the French peasants from the nineteenth century depicted by realist painters such as Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, drawing inspiration not only from the silhouettes, but from the palette of colors and textures, with soft tones of the earth with red and blue flashes (as seen vividly in Millet's "Woman baking bread" of 1854), the curled gauze and the stretch linen. The design features of Romeo Gigli that so fascinated critics - an ease of movement, the feeling of not imposing an identity on the wearer - were simply a modern stylization of the principles of the peasant dress (egalitarian, built for hard work and wear).
At the same time his designs became more and more a balance between the sensual and the rigorous - a cloud of blood-red organza floating weightless from under a black shirt, oversized sweaters paired with wool crepe skirts earth-colored, etc ... The color palette and the combination of tones (clay and earth, eggplant and dark gray black with the occasional explosion of red) reflected the interest in the work of abstract expressionists such as the Seagram Murals of Mark Rothko.
His references were rarely literal: rather than having a fabric printed with a painting or replicating the clothes in a portrait, Gigli instead worked to recreate the emotion produced by a work of art. The prevailing mood originated from the Pre-Raphaelite school and from Rossetti's paintings in colors, in the high lives and in the cut-out and edged necklines of lace. His silhouettes often included a rounded cocoon skirt (which Gigli described as "heart-shaped") modeled by soft chiffons, crepe and voile (elasticized so you can give up any internal structure or seams).
The models who wore her clothes had a fragile appearance and very white skin, usually without make-up with a hint of peach lipstick on their lips, their hair was often curly and gathered like the deities represented in Alma Tadema's paintings so as to further accentuate the romantic aspect.


Starting in the spring / summer 1987, Gigli was named head designer at Callaghan, which became another point of reference for his exploration of these ideals. Both lines were built and played with each other, blending together a pre-Raphaelite pathos with Indian, Turkish and Persian elements discovered during his travels. In line with his antiquarian origins, he was fascinated by the Roman and Byzantine ante: as a child, his parents had led him to see Pompeii and the design of a villa remained imprinted on his conscience. "His essential lines had communicated a serenity and a deep inner elegance for so many centuries", he loved to say, and he wanted to put "the same lasting purity" in the lines of his clothes. His models for spring / summer 1989 have been compared to "bas-reliefs of an ancient Roman fresco" with their loose chignon wrapped in gold ribbons and stained and sticky garments.
Taking the Empress Theodora as a source of inspiration for the autumn / winter of 1989, in the hands of Gigli the Byzantine mosaics turned into vaporous gold slightly wrapped around the body and head; a cocoon cloak heavily embroidered by hand with gold threads; gold metallic leggings under a floating chiffon skirt and lace-up strapless top.
The former Byzantine province of Venice was the inspiration behind the glass fringes used by Gigli for the spring / summer 1990 - a poetic gesture that brought a millennium of history into the present.
Although at the beginning of the decade many journalists thought that Romeo Gigli would be "the designer of the 90s", the poor commercial relationships and the evolution of taste counteracted at the beginning of a long period of decline. Gigli retained control of his company after a long legal battle with his business partners, Sozzani and Donato Maino, in 1991 (losing his Milan office and his shop, which Sozzani quickly transformed into the iconic 10 Corso Como), but with a paralyzing debt on his shoulders that left him at the mercy of his creditors.




In 1999 the Romeo Gigli entered with a partnership to be part of the Ittierre stable, which once listed on the stock exchange, controls the fashion brands with It Holding. The company led by Tonino Perna, the newspapers wrote, bought for 60 billion the control of the brands that belonged to Gigli, but in 2004 the brand changed hands again: It Holding sold it to Pierluigi Mancinelli, owner of Fratelli Prandina di Schio (Vicenza), a men's clothing company. The brand suffered yet another travail following its preventive criminal seizure, due to the bankruptcy (December 2008) of the company Mood, established in 2004 precisely to manage the Gigli brand and its 28 variations recorded in Italy and in the world. Romeo Gigli's star returned to shine only in 2012 on the fashion scene, from which he had moved away from 2004, with the three-year collaboration with Joyce Group, a giant of Asian luxury with which the designer has created a world exclusive collection.


Recently, in 2017, he created the costumes for the opera "The Dissolute Punished or Don Giovanni", with the sets by Barnaba Fornasetti, which was staged first in Milan and then at the Teatro della Pergola of Florence during Pitti Uomo.


His latest project, presented in February during the MFW, was born from the meeting with Giordano Ollari, owner and buyer of the multi-brand ‘O and former sales manager of IT Holding. His line, composed of 13 evening dresses, is called Eggs, to remember the romantic shapes of eggs that distinguish Romeo's work. The outfits are heterogeneous, they do not follow a theme but represent many different stories, combining masculine and feminine, fairy-tale but wearable, the result of a careful and cultured mix and match, born from having yielded to the great love for the precious refinement in the choice of decoration , never subjected to the demon of banality, but the result of rare and sophisticated predilections, to put it in the words of the designer. Everything is mixable, everything is black to define and emphasize the essence and importance of the form, apart from a few touches of red and gold.
Gigli is once again ready to intercept desires, break down stereotypes, invent new languages, model dreams.

Smp Trade for Romeo Gigli Milano
 
Vogue Italia February 1986

source | archivovogue via justaguy
 
Vogue Italia September 1983


source | archivovogue via justaguy
 
Marie Claire Japon March 1988



RosieNikolaeva scans via ellastica
 

source | nytimes | November 11, 1990

The new Romeo Gigli shop is not only a little off Madison Avenue at 69th Street, it's also a little bit off the wall. Will it suffice to say that very few clothing stores are remarkable for their ashtrays and garden furniture? That this one sells a scarf for about $2,500 -- and it actually seems to be worth it?

The store, which opened last week, is that kind of rare retail bird. It is a fascinating showplace for one designer's vision.

To begin with, its name isn't even on the door; in fact, the words Spazio Romeo Gigli, using the Italian term for shop, are not even discreetly stenciled on the windows. You simply have to know where to go.

(Turn right off Madison after passing the shops of Versace, Armani and Valentino, and watch for the Gigli people: waiflike women in medieval coats and velvet Peter Pan boots; dark, broody men with an antique tailored look, like something out of a Merchant-Ivory film. They will be drifting in and out of a nondescript town house at 21 East 69th Street.)

What You See Is . . .

Then there is the interior design. Mr. Gigli, a former architecture student, has essentially deconstructed a five-story town house, stripping the ceilings to bare timbers and the walls to pipes and wiring.

"Most people come in and say, 'You sure have a lot of work left to do,' " said Ellen Carey, the publicity director for Romeo Gigli in New York. "However, we've finished.”

Air ducts hang cheek to cheek with Venetian glass chandeliers. Shards of glass twinkle in cement floors, creating the illusion that the chandeliers have shattered on the floor. Wall fixtures in the shape of grape clusters, from Venetian blown glass, light the stairwells. Even the clothing racks are made of Venetian glass.

The ashtrays and furniture in the ground-floor garden are by Capellini, an Italian designer. The white sand in the ashtrays is hand-sculptured.

"We had to look very hard to find the sand," said Manos Zorba, a salesman at the store. "It had to be a baby white color, and very fine. We eventually found some at a pet supplier."

It seems a shame to crush a cigarette in it.

Oh, yes, there are clothes. Mr. Gigli's collections for men and women are sold -- exhibited, really -- here. They are both glorious and dear. Off the Rack This Isn't

The first two floors are for the women's clothes, including many limited-edition pieces, like a basket-weave ribbon coat ($11,600) a gold-thread embroidered vest ($15,000), or a mirrored cagoule, an Indian head scarf with a pointed hood (about $2,500). The designer only makes 30 of these limited-series items, which come out of no particular period or style and thus seem timeless.

But there are also many of the Gigli signature pieces: the charming silk blouses with moldable collars that either wrap around, tie in back or have odd sleeves that have to be wound around and around the wrist (requiring a lover's assistance; Mr. Gigli, you see, is a romantic). The iridescent cropped trousers, lace bustiers and unusual "twist" sweaters will dent without devastating your pocketbook -- all are under $1,000.

Men's suits are in the classic three-button style and cost $1,050; sport jackets go for around $800. Raglan-sleeve wool coats that have the slope-shouldered sihouette of his women's coats cost $1,200. The microfiber raincoats are $900.

The least expensive items are men's socks, for $35, and women's perfume, $45. But price isn't the point: cheap copies of Mr. Gigli's designs are now available all over. It's an image store, a playground for the fashion imagination.
 
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source | nytimes | September 17, 1989

Romeo Gigli worked his fans into a frenzy at his first major New York show Thursday, re-creating the hysteria that greeted his first Paris show last March. The designer from Milan, Italy, has widened his circle: his earlier presentation was for retailers and the press; this one was for the women who would wear the clothes. The show was sponsored by Bergorf Goodman in the space at 745 Fifth Avenue and 57th Street that will be part of its men's store next year.

Many women had already acquired the designer's tapered pants, cutaway jackets or frilly blouses to wear to the cocktail party. Mr. Gigli said he could not ever recall seeing so many people wearing his clothes in one place. They included Blaine Trump in a one-shoulder gold-banded bodice that she put together with black Calvin Klein pants, Barbara Hodes in a black tunic over flowered pants, and Dawn Mello, the president of Bergdorf, who wore a fragile-looking black lace top over snug stretch pants. Helping the Rain Forests

''We've carried Gigli since he started four years ago, but he has peaked this season,'' Miss Mello said.

Conservation International, which is concerned with preserving the rain forests, was the beneficiary of the show. With tickets at $300 each, about $100,000 was expected to be collected to help preserve the tropical forest of Madagascar, said Spencer Beebe, a vice president of the conservation group. Blaine Trump, Susan Sarandon and Holly Solomon, who owns the art gallery that bears her name, were among the committee members who worked on the event.

Mrs. Solomon, who was wearing a black lace Gigli dress, said she first met the designer when he came into her gallery to buy art. She volunteered her gallery at 724 Fifth Avenue and 56th Street as the site for dinner after the show for some of the 500 guests. Glorious Food produced the veal and pasta meal.

Some of the audience members, in their Ungaros and their Ferres, looked mystified as the wistful-looking models with cornrow-inspired hairdos drifted down the runway in Mr. Gigli's tasseled shawls and rounded brocade coats. But many were enthusiastic.

''He's talking about one world,'' Mrs. Solomon said. ''He's taken ideas from the Middle Ages, from Africa and India and made clothes that are so easy to wear.'' 'Like Watching Art'

Bianca Jagger, wearing a black Versace jacket with a Gigli blouse and pajama pants by ''nobody famous'' called him ''the most exciting designer I have seen in a long time because he makes women wear men's clothes with a great deal of femininity.''

American designers who attended the show were also enthusiastic. ''The show was extraordinary, like watching art,'' Donna Karan said. Isaac Mizrahi agreed with Victor Costa, who said Mr. Gigli's clothes express an ''amazingly individual point of view.''

Mr. Gigli's success represents the growing acceptance of Italian designers outside their own country. While he has a reputation for shyness and avoids photographers - he did not take a walk down the runway after his show as most designers do - he said he enjoyed working with customers.

''He's been in the store for four days and we never can find him,'' Miss Mello said. ''He always is on the sales floor talking to customers.''

The designer said he is learning a lot that way about what American women want.
 
LOL OMG serving veal at a rain forest benefit (…weren’t cattle one of the reasons that rain forests were mass-cleared for????... Fashion people: Not the brightest bunch...)

His womenswear was so charming and authentically artisanal— although the shop is comically veering on the side of pretension with the “white sand” (kitty litter LOL) only in the ashtray. And wow— ashtrays to welcome and encourage smoking inside a shop LOOOL

(Never was a fan of his menswear. Nor those horrible Peter Pan shoes. Do remember a pair of simple but sublime flat mules with peacock feathers that looked like something Botticelli’s Venus herself would have worn once she stepped off her ethereal plane to touch upon this mortal world…Some of the branding was so unintentionally silly, but Romeo’s brand of fashion is sorely missed in this bland corporate fashionscape.)

Thank you @MissMagAddict!
 

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