Iconic fashion designer Elio
Fiorucci was found dead at his Milan home on Monday, sources
said. He had turned 80 on June 6.
Relatives alerted emergency services after he failed to
answer the telephone at the weekend.
He was "in good health" but may have succumbed to a sudden
illness, the Fiorucci press office said.
Fiorucci's typical offerings, combining Italian taste and a
London spirit, were made up of bright and fluorescent colors,
T-shirts printed with angels, and plastic-based accessories.
This son of a shoe shop owner born in 1935 was one of the
great made-in-Italy innovators, whose pop style at democratic
prices caused a revolution in clothing beginning in the 1960s.
His first store opened in Milan in 1967, where he sold his
soon-to-become iconic T-shirts printed with Victorian angels and
hearts in fluorescent colors as well as brightly colored
gadgets, accessories, food and beverages.
The store became a gathering point for counterculture youth
drawn to the accessible glamour of a designer who adopted the
"peace and love" hippie slogan as his own.
Stores in London and New York followed. The midtown
Manhattan store designed by Ettore Sottsass opened in 1976 and
became a meeting place of New York artists and intellectuals,
drawing a young Madonna and with Andy Warhol choosing it as a
location for the launch of his new magazine - Interview.
In 1977 Fiorucci organized the grand opening of what was to
become another Manhattan and global landmark - the disco Studio
54.
Cut to 1982, when Dupont invented Lycra and Fiorucci mixed
it with denim, giving birth to the first stretch jeans.
This was followed in 1983 by the launch of the Flashdance
esthetic, for he was the first to design and sell brand-name
leggings, legwarmers, sweatshirts, and all the accoutrements
that had became instant objects of desire after the movie about
the ambitious dancer/steelworker won the hearts and minds of a
generation of teenaged girls.
The visionary designer in 1990 sold his company to Japanese
company Edwin Co. Ltd., but 11 years ago founded a new brand
called Love Therapy which is still successful today.
In an interview with ANSA just before his 80th birthday
last month, the designer said two key words that he saw as
nearly obsolete should be brought back into everyday
conversation: waste and empathy.
"Our excesses reflect negatively on planetary balance,
limiting everyone's resources," Fiorucci said.
"Let's try to translate the rules of harmonious living into
a code of fair sharing...let's put our duties towards animals,
nature, the environment, our neighbors, in black and white," he
said.
"That way we will automatically discover the meaning of
empathy".
"I am saddened by the loss of...a free spirit, a creative
talent that embodied the industriousness of his native Milan
while spreading the Italy brand around the world - with grace,
curiosity, and passion," Premier Matteo Renzi said.
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