Elio Fiorucci has died at age 80

[XXL]

http://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/elio-fiorucci-dead-at-10189772/

MILAN – Fashion designer Elio Fiorucci has died here at age 80.

His relatives tried several times to reach him on the phone Sunday without success and medical personnel found the body in his flat in the Porta Venezia neighborhood on Monday.

A fashion industry pioneer, Fiorucci, who started working in his father’s footwear boutique at 17, opened his first store in 1967 to bring the eccentric, unconventional style of Swinging London to Milan, selling designs from the likes of Biba and Ossie Clark. The store sold everything from rag rugs to hair products, disco wear to kitchen kettles. Fiorucci himself called the store “an amusement park of novelties,” and up to 10,000 people would enter it on any given Saturday. A good friend of people like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Madonna, in 1970 Fiorucci launched his namesake ready-to-wear line, focused on denim pieces at affordable prices and the iconic T-shirts printed with the brand’s signature angels. More Fiorucci stores opened in major fashion capitals, including London and New York, which opened in 1976 and where everyone from Marc Jacobs to Cher to Jackie Onassis rubbed shoulders.

In 1990, Fiorucci sold his company to Japanese group Edwin International. In 2003, he closed his main store in Milan – which at its peak was said to have sales of more than $15 million a year – and launched the “Love Therapy” label. Five years later, the designer and fashion entrepreneur signed a licensing agreement with Italian retailer Coin Group for the production and distribution of the “Love Therapy” women’s and children’s collections in the Oviesse stores.

A vegetarian and animal-right activist, Fiorucci was known in the fashion and art worlds not only for his creative, avant-garde vision, but also for his gentle and graceful attitude. He eschewed the flamboyance for which his designs and stores were known, almost invariably being clad in a plain sweater and slacks. “I am a merchant, not a man of fashion,” he told WWD in 1976 on the opening of his Manhattan store, which was just down the street from Bloomingdale’s.

“Elio Fiorucci has been one of those incredible people who marked the story of Milan, interpreting its rebel, curious spirit. He was always ready to take some risks to really understand his time, ” said Giorgio Armani. “He was a revolutionary and I always appreciated his taste, which was so far from mine, which was so pop and vivacious, the taste of a man who never stopped believing in his dreams. I always thought he believed in fairy tales and that he was so good at telling them to be able to convince people they were real.”

“I’m astonished; I talked to him a month ago,” said Renzo Rosso, who first met Fiorucci before launching Diesel, when he was working with Adriano Goldschmied. “Chapeau to Elio! He revolutionized the jeans industry in the Seventies and invented a new type of fashion targeting young people.”

Rosso also noted that Firoucci’s brand Classic Nouveau, which was designed by Pierre Morrisset, served as inspiration for him to launch Diesel in 1978. “Elio was a positive, beautiful, proactive person. He was never angry and he used to tell me: ‘Renzo, be quiet, don’t get mad, it isn’t worth it.’”

“Elio and I were longtime friends. If I have to describe him with few words, I would say he was a great man, with a great charisma and a kind soul,” said Camera Nazionale della Moda honorary president Mario Boselli. “He gracefully did amazing, legendary things without any arrogance.”

“The first time I met him was in my studio in 1966. He was full of enthusiasm and he wanted to open a different kind of store. A year later, the store of Galleria Passerella was finished, or almost finished,” said artist Amalia Del Ponte, who designed Fiorucci’s first legendary shop in Milan. “The last time we talked – recently – he asked me to recommend him some places in India,” added Del Ponte, who learned of the loss of his friend while abroad.

“Elio Fiorucci: his death is such a shock. He was a great man, who invented the idea of ‘democratic fashion,’” said Milanese interior design guru Rossana Orlandi. “He has been the point of reference for an entire generation. He was a wonderful, wise friend, generous and always full of joy and enthusiasm.”

“I met him when I was very young and we immediately clicked. We were two very different people, we had different opinions but in the end we always arrived at the same conclusions,” said Stone Island’s president Carlo Rivetti. “A few months ago, he gave me a book and he wrote ‘with love and respect.’ I lost a friend.”

From Pud's

Vice Interview June 5, 2015

https://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/fiorucci-made-me-hardcore-we-speak-to-the-italian-fashion-legend

When in March 2003 the closing of Fiorucci's flagship store in Milan's Galleria Passarella was announced, it felt like an era was coming to an end. Elio Fiorucci was gone and had been replaced by the fast fashion colossus H&M

Some know Elio Fiorucci for his angels, some for his Love Therapy, for his animalistic positions or for his provocations--whether they were women's naked breasts or hot pants--and for having freed Milan's fashion from haute couture. Some see him as a friend to the greatest pop artists, others as a pre-social media cool hunter, as an innovator and a trendsetter. "He is the master of us all," Vivienne Westwood said.

He brought London's swinging 60s to Milan, and Italian fashion to New York, introduced i-D's Terry Jones to Madonna, who put her on the cover, and helped form the visual identity of New York's queer disco underground. Elio Fiorucci made history.

[Stephen]

RIP

[jimster48]

):

[loomer]

He wears the finest clothes

The best designers, heaven knows

Ooh, from his head down to his toes

Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci

He looks like a still

That man is dressed to kill

[anastaza]

RIP

[Guest Pud Whacker]

RIP!!!

XXL imagine if we get video footage of that day. i will die!!!

[loomer]

OMG she performed out of a birthday cake? Prelude to the VMAs.

[surannée]

He wears the finest clothes

The best designers, heaven knows

Ooh, from his head down to his toes

Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci

He looks like a still

That man is dressed to kill

That was exactly what I thought when I heard of his passing.

I still have a beautiful yellow Fiorucci sweater I bought in the mid-eighties. R.I.P.

[Guest]

RIP

[elijah]

RIP

[XXL]

RIP!!!

XXL imagine if we get video footage of that day. i will die!!!

Me too Pud

I would really love to see professionally recorded footage of her band years, Uncle Sam, Camden Palace, Roxy

The very early RAW stuff

I always hope that such recordings are in existence and maybe one day someone will release them (legally)

I care more about professional recordings of performances from 1980-1983 than getting VT, BAT, RIT on dvd/blu-ray

At least we can "access" those performances (minus the full VT)

[Plasticlimbo]

https://www.facebook.com/madonnaparadise/videos/vb.267349237978/10153155059742979/?type=2&theater

2004 - Cocktail D'Amore : Amanda Lear interviews Elio Fiorucci.

Amanda: Considering the early 80's, do you think that pop stars could really influence people's life in wearing clothes or carrying a certain style?

Fiorucci: I do! This is very interesting...There are some talented stars like Madonna who are able to sense what's going to be 'in'.She needs people around and feels their need and interpretates it in that moment.

Amanda: Oh yes, Madonna! We all remember as she influenced all those girls that loved her inconditionally and dressed like her, you know, with all those crosses... Did she also wear clothes from your stores, right?

Fiorucci: She felt like 'the trend was in the air' as we use to say. Well I can tell you that she started with us for sure. When Madonna wasn't so famous, there was a store in New York's 54th Street where her little brother used to work, so she was almost every day there.She had her first performance in 1984 at Studio 54 celebrating Fiorucci's 15th birthday.
What I like in Madonna is that she always do what she wants and without influence, because it's a talent, she is like a stylist, she senses what's going on at that moment.