![]() Those assignments changed the course of her life, leading to a job as fashion editor at the prestigious Arianna at its peak during the 1960s when, thanks mainly to regular visits to London, she developed her flamboyant style. She met her husband there, who took her along to fashion shoots and encouraged her to write style pieces for the Mondadori-produced Epoca magazine. She worked briefly as a Latin tutor in Switzerland and governess in England before taking a job at the Milan publishing house Mondadori as a secretary and occasional translator of science-fiction novels. Having been raised by her mother from the age of seven after the death of her father, manager of the La Rinascente department store, Piaggi remembered “suffering in serge” at boarding school and, a brief obsession with Dutch traditional outfits – clogs included – aside, had a wardrobe largely consisting of tweeds and twinsets. Her influence on the establishment of Italy, and particularly her home city of Milan, as a major global fashion hub, also tends to pass under the cultural radar. A contributing editor at Vogue Italia for more than two decades, the double-page spreads she conceived and produced for the magazine were often the first feature readers would turn to. Of them on her bright red Olivetti typewriter that was missing its no 9 key. Somewhere upwards of 6,500 reviews and editorials during her career, most Towards the end of her life she calculated that she’d written Her one-of-a-kind dress sense tended to obscure the fact that Piaggi was a widely respected and influential writer who could make or break a newĬollection. Piaggi was an authoritative fashion historian. Some of her garments were 200 years old, sourced from markets, vintage shops and auction housesĪround the world, ensuring that far from being a mere eccentric peacock, Wardrobe, it was in effect a history of fashion. Of her Milan home, was more than just one woman’s distinctive personal Her vast collection of clothes, which took up three large rooms and the attic And on top of that, she had a fairly large red parasol with frills all around it. “She had Chanel jewellery on, little gloves and a big lavender hat with yellow pansies. “She was wearing Manolo patent boots, white frilled lace pantalets, a John Galliano camellia-printed chiffon dress with giant red and blue peonies all over it and a Dolce & Gabbana denim jacket with little gold fringes,” he said. ![]() At her memorial service in 2012 the milliner Stephen Jones, who designed countless hats for Piaggi, recalled the last time he saw her. When, in 2006, the Victoria and Albert Museum staged an exhibition drawn from her collection, they were informed there were 265 pairs of shoes, 932 hats and 2,865 dresses to choose from.Īge never dimmed her. Photographer Alfa Castaldi, Piaggi’s inimitable sense of style was the same,Īnd so vast was her wardrobe she never wore the same outfit twice. ![]() Whether on assignment at a show, a party, an editorial meeting or just at home with her husband, the This idiosyncratic panache was no affectation. For a moment, nobody was quite certain if she needed help or the flames were part of the ensemble. A few weeks earlier, at the wedding of Paloma Picasso, her flamboyant headwear moved too close to a candelabra and caught fire. Strange as it sounds, Piaggi’s pungent Venetian ball ensemble still only ranked as her second most extraordinary fashion moment of that summer. Of course, I could only wear it for a few hours, it was heavy and after a while it started to smell. “I boughtĮverything that morning at the market. “I threw a shawl over my head like a peasant and on top I put a basket ofįresh seafood from which two dead pigeons dangled,” she said. Instead of trying to out-dandy the dandies, Piaggi decided to go in a completely different direction, as only she could. “I knew everyone would be coming to the party dressed as I do every day,” she said, “so I thought, how shall I be different?” Lagerfeld was one of her closest friends, so she was keener than ever to create the right outfit, especially with historical flamboyance being the theme of the occasion. One interviewerĭescribed meeting Piaggi as “like surfing 40 television channels all at once”. Unafraid to hide the latest work of leading designers among vintage items and accessories – she’d once matched a pair of Edwardian bloomers with a canvas cape made for the 1913 Ballets Russes premiere of Stravinsky’s The Firebird – her unique and colourful sense of style trumped even the most avant-garde designers on the runways of Europe – and she had the personality to match. Until Piaggi appeared in whatever eye-popping combination of garments she’d assembled carefully for the occasion. Since the 1960s no fashion event had been complete Celebrated as one of Europe’s leading fashion writers, she was better known for her sheer presence on the scene. For Anna Piaggi the theme had presented a dilemma. ![]()
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