ROMEO GIGLI: ROMANCE AND MULTIETHNIC CHIC
Romeo Gigli was born in Faenza (according to some sources – in Bologna), Italy in 1950 (according to some sources – in 1949, and according to others – in 1951). During two years he studies architecture. He travels around the world, walking round different exotic countries. He participates in the creation of a collection for Luciano Papini in 1972. In 1977 he produces knitting for the London boutique “Brown”. One year later he works already for the American designer Pietro Dimitri in New York. He creates his own brand in 1981, and from 1984 to 1989 he works for the Italian company “Zamasport”, making especially for it the line “Callaghan”. In 1984 his turnover reaches 2 million US dollars. He establishes in Paris (1989) and he starts participate in fashion shows, organized from the syndical chamber of fashion. In 1990 he launches a line sport clothes “G Gigli”, and in 1991 he puts on the market his first own perfume. The same year he separates with his business partners Donato Mayano and Karla Suzanne. He restructures his activity in the company “Romeo world” and since the first years he earns 200 milliard Italian liras. In 80s and 90s he partners with a number of authoritative fashion and commercial companies in all over the world. He puts on the market glasses, child, youth and sport articles, mirrors, lamps, carpets etc. In February 2005 his successor Anna Cuimo presents in Milan the collection “Romeo Gigli”, autumn-winter 2005-2006. Today the clothes of “Romeo Gigli” are sold in 120 boutiques in Italy, in 70 boutiques in other countries in Europe, in 40 boutiques in America etc. Prizes: his perfume “Romeo di Romeo Gigli” wins the prize “Academy of Perfume” for the best packing (1989); his man jacket is nominated with the prize “Ul mark” (1989), a toilet of Gigli wins the prize “Cloth of the year” of the Museum of the costume in Bat (1990) etc.
There are not so many the designers, for whom are justifiable epithets like “poets” and “musicians”, “dreamers” and “composers” in fashion. What attracts so much in the works of the Italian fashion creator Romeo Gigli? With what he develops and he enriches the world fashion school? Are the judgments about him like “individualist”, “noncommercial designer” and “different designer” justified?
THE LACK OF EDUCATION IS A KIND OF EDUCATION
Like other his famous compatriots like Gianfranco Ferre and Giorgio Armani, Romeo Gigly doesn’t have a specialized education in fashion design. He studies two years architecture that undoubtedly later helps him to “work” with the space and bravely to reform the traditional silhouette. He travels a lot and everywhere – during some ten years he travels around the world, including China, The Orient, India, USA, Morocco and who knows where else. Just the trips around the exotic places attract his interest to the national costumes and to the ethnical clothes so much so that before long he starts to collect foreign costumes, ornaments and all kind of daily objects from different continents. But maybe his most serious education Romeo obtains in his family background. His grandfather and his father are devoted to the antiquarian occupation. The aristocratism that was always reigning in his house, the rich spiritual atmosphere and the cult attitude to the books and the antique objects educate from early years the aesthete and the connoisseur in him. People say that Romeo Gigli of its own read the most of the 20th thousand secret antique books, that were a possession of his father and from his early childhood he was developing in itself the sense of the art – deep, sensitive and rich.
There are not so many the designers, for whom are justifiable epithets like “poets” and “musicians”, “dreamers” and “composers” in fashion. What attracts so much in the works of the Italian fashion creator Romeo Gigli? With what he develops and he enriches the world fashion school? Are the judgments about him like “individualist”, “noncommercial designer” and “different designer” justified?
THE LACK OF EDUCATION IS A KIND OF EDUCATION
Like other his famous compatriots like Gianfranco Ferre and Giorgio Armani, Romeo Gigli doesn’t have a specialized education in fashion design. He studies two years architecture that undoubtedly later helps him to “work” with the space and bravely to reform the traditional silhouette. He travels a lot and everywhere – during some ten years he travels around the world, including China, The Orient, India, USA, Morocco and who knows where else. Just the trips around the exotic places attract his interest to the national costumes and to the ethnical clothes so much so that before long he starts to collect foreign costumes, ornaments and all kind of daily objects from different continents. But maybe his most serious education Romeo obtains in his family background. His grandfather and his father are devoted to the antiquarian occupation. The aristocratism that was always reigning in his house, the rich spiritual atmosphere and the cult attitude to the books and the antique objects educate from early years the aesthete and the connoisseur in him. People say that Romeo Gigli of its own read the most of the 20th thousand secret antique books, that were a possession of his father and from his early childhood he was developing in itself the sense of the art – deep, sensitive and rich.
The preferable from the designer materials are cotton, wool, silk, jersey, wool boucle, tweed, chiffon, cashmere, stretch, cotton or silk tiffany, velvet, lace etc. During his whole carrier he perfects the textile selection as he uses the newest technologies for cultivating of the materials and he obtains influence and inspiration – including for the patterns, from the different ethno communities, that he meets during his trips. Still his first collections provoke amazement among the journalists and the critics with the different approach that he executes to the clothing of the feminine body. He uncovers it without undressing it and he undresses it without uncovering it! Media and connoisseurs are fascinated from his bright colors and substandard constructive decisions (for the opening of the necklines, for the using of the knots in the dresses, for the new function of the tassels, the fringes and the embroideries). People call his style strange “mixture of renaissance kingliness, Japanese severity and breaking, street, oriental chic”. The fashion of Romeo Gigli is likable and attracts the attention with its apparent shapelessness, softness and fluidity. The dose “difference” that he injects to the Italian fashion consists of his poetical sensation for colors and forms, combined with the strange technique for taking in and binding of the ends of the clothes and of the separated components. Just this original technique (so characteristic for the tribal cultures, for the youth image and for the subculture appearance) gives charm and negligee in the style of the clothing. Skirts and capes, unisex jackets and blouses with lace bordering, volumetric mantles and rounded sleeves – these and a number of others elements and details in the works of Gigli reveal the leanings of the author to bigger romance, freedom and innovation.
The designer gets inspiration from quite different sources – from the Universe and from the ethnic community, from the urban “street” ideas and from the historical characters (among them for example is empress Teodora). The Venetian stained glass takes also special place among the sources of his inspirations. The romantic line in the works of Gigli receives finished state with the strength usage of the typical for the Renaissance gold and bronze details and accessories. Still with his first activities Romeo Gigli makes public one new and different conception about the woman, the sex appeal and the fashion as a whole. We can confide to Chris Gulberg, president of the famous consulting agency in New York “Fashion Service”, who says:”Gigli is the first designer, who presents the femininity in a new fashionable way. His presence in fashion has already an effect: the smaller shoulders, the longer earrings, the rounded lines around the hips and the mixture from tender and luxurious materials in stretch formations – all this are tendencies, established from Gigli”.
During the last years of his creative work of its own trend Gigli interprets in a master way the kimono like fashion lady coat, he restores the interest to А-silhouette and he accents to the corsages, to the heavy aristocratic tones. In February 2005 the designer Anna Cuimo makes her debute in Milan with collection “Romeo Gigli”. Inspired from the style “Art Deco”, she uses a great variety of retro elements and obtains different art and cultural influences from 30s in her attempt to throw a bridge of succession to the past manner of Romeo Gigli.
ROMEO GIGLI AND THE OTHERS
The Italian master of the romantic and feminine line makes one more serious exception from the standard, well known mechanism of the creative success. He is among the few designers that not only learns from his coevals but at his turn exercises them influence. To deconstructive ideas Gigli stays very close to the Japanese designer Rey Kawakubo. His works amazingly remind of the free silhouettes, of the volumetric cuts and of the unconventional creative decisions of Kawakubo. With one special feature, marked from a number of experts – the fashion of Romeo Gigli is tamer, more grounded, more tempered compared to the radical chic of Rey Kawakubo. As wrote years ago the American magazine “Time”: “Gigli simplified the style of many works, created by Kawakubo for “Comme des garcons”, as he added to this Milan sensuality and still with his first collection changed into one of the most famous designers”.
It is significant that Romeo Gigli influences strongly on the creative work of a number of famous contemporary designers, some of which are to a great extent older than him (like Giorgio Armani, for example) and others that are quite younger (Alexander McQuin, who was working for some time for Gigli). The noncommercial approach, the difference, the poetic spirit and the conceptual femininity are the values and the advantages in the works of Romeo Gigli, that most often make an impression to the other creators. Bearing in mind that just Gigli uses for his fashion shows pale, too weak and with apparent exhausted appearance models, it can be seek a relation between the models of McQueen, to a great “heroin chic” merit at the end of 90s and the style of fashion defile, launched by Romeo Gigli in the 80s. It can be seek the influence of Gigli over McQueen also regarding the untraditional spaces, used to show the new design. Still in the 80s the designer starts to present his works in deserted, wild and tattered places – garages, yards, depots in Corso Como – Milan. Some ten years later Alexander McQueen won the nickname “the bad guy of England” to a great extent because of the choice of untraditional places for fashion shows – car parks, garages, metro stations, deserted churches etc.
The most of the fashion designers are famous with their distrust, jealousness and even negativism regarding to their contemporary colleagues. This feeling is like alien to the talented Italian fashion creator, as are alien to him a number of marketeering attitudes and an aspiration to conquer the market by all means. He is showed as one of the first designers, who start to offer his works in combination with the clothes of other his colleagues. In his boutique in Milan, for example, are sold clothes that are a mixture from the trends “Romeo Gigli”, “Jean Paul Gautier”, “Sibila” etc.
* * *
The multiethnic chic in the design of Romeo Gigli attracts the attention not so much with the magic exotics, nor with the bright variety of colors and forms, sizes and silhouettes. The strongest impression makes the virtuosity, which the Italian designer mixes with the visual aesthetical values, the lace and the tulle, the corsets with the hoods and the tribal ornaments for head. Bunching the treasures of the cultures and the civilizations of the many centuries – bracelets and rings, slaves and bands, diadems and cloaks, he remakes and rearrange them it that manner that they will shine with their original fashion and authentic brilliance. Romeo Gigli is a convincing proof for the unity of the tradition and of the innovation, for the spiritual and the aesthetical identity of the noncommercial design, for the real realization of the fashion like an art, like poetry, music and art of painting.
Notes: in the article are used the following sources:
Ermilova, D.U. История домов моды, “Academia”, Moskow, 2003; История моды с ХVІІІ по ХХ век. Колекции Института костюма Киото. “Art-Rodnik”, Moskow, 2003; Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989; Ewing,E.History of 20th Century Fashion.Third Edition.Revised and updated by Alice Mackrell. London,1992; Fashion dictionary. Baldini Castroldi Dalai editore, Inc., New York, 2006 ; Martin,R.The St.James Fashion Encyclopedia:A Survey of Style from 1945 to the Present.Visible Ink Press. Detroit,1997; McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000; O`Hara,G.The Encyclopaedia of Fashion.From 1840 to the 1980s.Thames and Hudson.London,1986; Reuters Television News; Seeling, Ch. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. Konёmann,2000,Cologne;
ttp://www.fashionwindows.com/default.asp ; http://www.answers.com/topic/romeo-gigli?cat=biz-fin
http://www.infomat.com/whoswho/romeogigli.html и др.
VIDEO:
Romeo Gigli Spring Summer 08 Menswear Full Show
Romeo Gigli FW07-08
Sfilate Milano Moda Donna: Romeo Gigli
Photos:
1. Romeo Gigli
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989, p.87
2. Romeo Gigli, spring-summer 1988 (detail)
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989, p.87
3. Romeo Gigli, autumn-winter 1989-1990
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989, p.87
4. Cloth of the year – Museum of Costume, Bath – Romeo Gigli, 1990
Photo: © Ewing, E.History of 20th Century Fashion.Third Edition.Revised and updated by Alice Mackrell. London,1992, p. 280
5. Romeo Gigli, spring-summer 1991
Photo: © История моды с ХVІІІ по ХХ век. Колекции Института костюма Киото. “Art-Rodnik”, Moskow, 2003, p. 628
6. – 9. Romeo Gigli, 1992 – 1996
Photo: © McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000
10. Romeo Gigli, spring-summer 1996
Photo: © Javier Valbonrat / Martin,R.The St.James Fashion Encyclopedia:A Survey of Style from 1945 to the Present.Visible Ink Press. Detroit,1997, p. 149
11. – 14. Works of Romeo Gigli, of a great romantic style
Photo: © Seeling, Ch. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. Konёmann,2000,Cologne, pp. 506 – 507
15. and 16. Romeo Gigli, spring-summer 2003
Photo: © Gruber-FWD
17. and 18. Romeo Gigli, spring-summer 2004
Photo: © Giovanni Pucci
19. Sketch of Romeo Gigli, autumn-winter 2004-2005
Photo: © Fashion dictionary. Baldini Castroldi Dalai editore, Inc., New York, 2006, p. 536
Read: 22715 times © Fashion Lifestyle Magazine, issue 10, May 2008
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