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. A story of passion, eclecticism and fantasy.For Anna Piaggi the theme had presented a dilemma. The exhibition at the Louvre with its disco-tech and her face projected onto the stucchi of the museum, followed by that of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, fixed her place in history. With her subversive edge, a beyond-eccentric style, her explosive creativity influenced fashion, becoming an integral part of it, influencing generations of stylists. More than articles, they were a collage of words, ideas, and images that illustrated the connections between the most diverse stylistic creations. Doppie Pagine di Anna Piaggi", the musings of this journalist who invented the career of fashion editor, becoming a huge success. A passion for dressing up, born and matured from an old costume from Carnevale of a little Dutch girl, then school, the desire to get away, the Sixties with Arianna, the first female magazine in the sector, then the immense love story with Vogue. But, above all, her clothes were to be worn on an idealised abstract stage, fantastical interpretations geared towards a modern form of provocation. The Chanel tailleur, the John Galliano blouson with gazette, the cloak from the 1920s, the horsehair hats, her inseparable Olivetti Valentine. With her collection of antique accessories and clothing, the result of her many travels, she was the first to use the term “vintage”. A fashion icon from the Sixties to Two-Thousand, friend to stylists like Gianni Versace and Karl Lagerfeld, to whom she was a muse, embellishing her face with clothing and accessories, Anna Piaggi was one of the greatest voices of the international fashion system, with her outfits that indulged needs and desires, similar to artworks, but never “too much”. Anna Piaggi was a monument, the “maddened variable” as Franca Sozzani called her, the fashion visionary, and Pasionaria at the same time, a living historic battle, with her fantastical styles, between past and present, punk and American Indian. A tuft of blue hair, two orange cheeks, a serious hat collection and, in her closet, over a thousand “pieces”, as she like to call them, a refined take from the most important collections of high fashion from around the world. If she were an artistic movement, we would probably imagine something between Dada and the Futurists, with an irreverent language and a hidden cultural depth below a lighthearted, slightly vain, almost-childlike facade.
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