Anna Piaggi, photo A. de Moraes Barros  

“Tribute to Anna” by Beatrice Brandini

Today I want to talk and remember another beautiful female figure: Anna Piaggi, the one who helped to create and communicate the Made in Italy.

There are not enough adjectives to describe her, I’ll try talking about creativity, eccentricity, personality. intelligence, sense of humor, courage , style, irreverence.

Born in Milan in 1931, she began working as a translator with Mondadori, and then converge, at the beginning of the sixties, in the fashion world , becoming a journalist .

Anna Piaggi at a fashion show in the 80s, gqitalia.it

Initially, she is the responsibility of the fashion magazine Arianna (I have a large collection and I must say it was a magazine really interesting and modern, especially if contextualized in the period in which it was published).

In 1962 she married Alfa Castaldi, great fashion photographer, often they will work together (the associations of love and art create great things!) .

In the seventies comes to Vogue. From 1981 to 1984 she studied the project of Vanity, exceptionally avant-garde magazine (I have all the numbers!), where I “discovered” Walter Albini, Antonio Lopez (I will talk about him soon, one of the greatest illustrators of all time ), Lorenzo Mattotti. Models like Grace Jones , Jerry Hall and Iman, and all the fashion of the 80s, fashion from there on we made (Italy) popular all over the world. In 1988 , again on Vogue, opens the column the “D.P.” double pages, which identifies and tracks in advance and with great intelligence, trends; in those pages there are in fact important cultural references, it is not only fashion, but art, theater, costume history. “I thought of a mixture of concepts, a concentration of images of visual stimuli, a vitamin Vogue Juice, and first of all I thought of the radical simplicity of the natural condition of the open, open pages, two by two, indivisible. Double pages. D..Piaggi ” Anna Piaggi

At the end of the eighties is a commentator of Panorama and then to the Espresso.

With Karl Lagerfeld, malesoulmakeup

In those years, Karl Lagerfeld dedicated a book ” Anna Chronique “. In the book describes Anna as follows : ” Anna invents fashion. When she are dressing automatically makes what we will do tomorrow. “

In the private life collect all, especially clothes, travels (also in order to find the “missing“ object ), and invented the concept of the vintage before it became fashionable.

Had a test so personal that designers and fashion companies seek as a consultant, contending her advice, and the ” fashion system ” the decrees  as muse. Anna is an important critically eye, sometime “uncomfortable”, but always direct and to the point .

Anna Piaggi, Repubblica.it

Over the years Piaggi will seek, through her clothing to communicate, communicate concepts, ideas. I think that her outfits were the “performance”, but despite the combination, often risky, (loved the patterns , color, boa , python, the veils and all the hats in general), she was never tacky.

Anna Piaggi, Vogue

Bill Cunningham , the photographer of the ” New York Times” said that Piaggi “worked with the outfits as painters with paint tubes, and perhaps a century from now, people will not remember some things of fashion mall, but they will want to know who was that woman”. “

Anna Piaggi, stylebistro.com

With her goes a genial character of the fashion world, a character who has contributed greatly to create the made in Italy.

      

Anna by Beatrice Brandini

Goodbye Anna, you have left an indelible mark on you, honor only of the greatest.

Good life to all!

Beatrice