Image courtesy of adensya.ru
On the heels of Elio Fiorucci’s death, Fashion Reverie looks back at the iconic pop fashion brand, Fiorucci. Founded in 1967 by Elio Fiorucci, the Fiorucci stores were the first Italian stores that sold clothes of the Swinging Sixties style and American classic jeans and tee shirt styles in Milan.
By the late 1970s and early 80s, the Fiorucci stores were known for their daytime “Studio 54” style of Italian clothing. The Italian party clothes attracted the likes of Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, the Rolling Stones, and Madonna. Some of these pop artists even formed design collaborations with the Italian fashion brand.
Fiorucci was one of the premiere brands responsible for the globalization of mass-market fashion to ever-expanding affluent fashion market. The brand also helped to popularize leopard skin pants, stretch jeans, and camouflage prints.
Image courtesy of David Bailey/vogue.it
In its early days, the Fiorucci stores sold such cutting edge British designers as Ossie Clark and Zandra Rhodes; however, by the early 70s Elio Fiorucci has switched his focus toward Brazilian thongs and monokinis, shocking the industry with its provocative add campaigns. The brands heyday was in the mid to late 70s when it opened a store in NYC introducing its trendsetting clothes to the nightlife set of the disco era. Customers in its East 59th Street store might rub shoulders with Cher, Marc Jacobs, Joey Arias, Lauren Bacall, Jackie Onassis, Calvin Klein, and Gloria Vanderbilt.
The brand’s many licensing deals kept the brand relevant throughout the 1980s with licensing deals with Disney, Wrangler Jeans, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Vivienne Westwood. By the late 80s, the brand’s type of marketing and design aesthetic had gone out of vogue with stores closing in the NYC and the rest of the US by end of the 80s.
Fiorucci experienced a revival by in the 1990s when the company was sold to the Japanese jeans company, Edwin Co. with Elio Fiorucci retaining creative control. Though the company never regained its popularity in the US, it was maintained its notoriety in Europe up through the early 2000s.
Elio Fiorucci image courtesy of expo2015.it
In 2003, the flagship store in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Milan was sold. Elio Fiorucci died on July 20, 2015.
—Staff
Speak Your Mind