Fashion career
The first clothes designed by Pucci were for the Reed College skiing team.[4] His designs came to wider attention in 1947, when he was on leave in Zermatt, Switzerland. Skiwear that he had designed for a female friend was photographed by Toni Frissell, a photographer working for Harper's Bazaar. Frissell's editor asked Pucci to design skiwear for a story on European Winter Fashion, which ran in the winter 1948 issue of the Bazaar.
Pucci was the first person to design a one-piece ski suit.[8] Although there had been some experiments with stretch fabrics in Europe before the war, Pucci's sleek designs caused a sensation, and he received several offers from American manufacturers to produce them.[3] Instead, he left the Air Force and set up an haute couture house in the fashionable resort of Canzone del Mare on the Isle of Capri.
Initially, he used his knowledge of stretch fabrics to produce a swimwear line in 1949, but he soon moved onto other items such as brightly coloured, boldly patterned silk scarves. Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus encouraged him to use the designs in blouses and then a popular line of wrinkle-free printed silk dresses.[3] In 1951 Giovanni Battista Giorgini invited journalists and buyers from around the world to a Made in Italy fashion show in Florence featuring Emilio Schuberth, Sorelle Fontana, Simonetta Colonna di Cesarò, Roberto Capucci, Alberto Fabiani, Jole Veneziani, and Pucci.[9]
Pucci added a boutique in Rome as business thrived, helped by Capri's role as a destination for the international jet set. By the early 1950s, Pucci was achieving international recognition, receiving the Neiman-Marcus Award in Dallas and the Burdines Sunshine Award in Miami. Marilyn Monroe was photographed by George Barris in a number of Pucci's items. After Monroe's death in 1962, she was interred wearing a Pucci dress.[10] Pucci was commissioned by Braniff International Airways to design uniforms in 1968 and again in 1972.[11] His print designs in acid yellow, lime green, turquoise, and pink captured the expressed 1960s psychedelia.[12]
As the decade progressed, his designs were worn by everyone from actress Sophia Loren to author Jacqueline Susann to First Lady Jackie Kennedy, as well as later pop icons, such as Madonna,[13] during an early 1990s period of 60s revival.[14][15] Whenever the Sixties were revived in fashion, Pucci was likely to be referenced.[16] In fashion history, especially during the period of the 1950s and 1960s, Pucci was a perfect transition example between luxurious couture and ready-to-wear in Europe and the North America.[17]
In 1959, Pucci decided to create a lingerie line. His atelier in Rome advised him to develop the line abroad, avoiding the difficulties of a decade earlier in matching available fabrics to the patterns of his first swimwear line. As a result, Pucci came to Chicago giving the lingerie contract to Formfit-Rogers mills. The venture proved to be successful, and Pucci was made vice president in charge of design and merchandising for the company a year later.
In February 1959, he married Cristina Nannini from Rome, about whom he later remarked, "I married a Botticelli."[18] They had two children, Alessandro and Laudomia. Alessandro died in a car crash in 1998, six years after his father.
