Three days ago Mrs. Laura Biagiotti left us all. Another glamorous
fashion designer reaching Mr. Versace in clothing angels. I'm Italian,
this post is more than deserved.
She was one of the modern Italian
fashion artists (the so-called "Cashmire Queen" or the "White Lady")
who contributed to the huge success of the "made-in-Italy". Her work in
the fashion industry started when she was very young at her mother's
atelier in Rome. Her mother, indeed, designed the Alitalia uniforms in
1964.
It's just in 1972 when Laura acquired MacPershon factory in
Pisa that she really brought herself on the international fashion
"balcony". She showed her interest in white, semplicity and innovative
shapes of cashmere by putting in place runways in China (the first
Italian fashion designer doing so) (1988), Russia (1995) and Egypt
(1998).
Today her maison called "The House of Biagiotti" in Rome,
is one of the largest fashion houses in Italy. In 2015 the brand
celebrated its 50 birthday setting a new partnership with Anegelini in
producing and distributing, which followed the previous one with
Protecter and Gamble. At the end of that year these were the data
available on the brand: 16 licenses, 37 male and female collections and
21 workers.
Laura Biagiotti was able to build in parallel two
"empires": one in fashion, as worldwide know, and the other one about
real estate businesses, particularly castles (e.g. Castello Marco di
Simone di Guidonia, Rome).
At the finance perspective, few data
are available: in 2015 Biagiotti Group's turnover was 4,9 billion euros
for a whole yearly business about 90 billion ones.
The White Lady
joined actively the fashion industry revolution in '80s and '90s
providing the made-in-Italy the deserved rank closed to the main French
maisons. Many Italian celebrities (e.g. Nancy Brilli, Carla Fracci and
Natasha Stefanenko) weared her masterpieces, on red carpets as well as
on films. She got many awards, above all:
- 1992, Woman of the Year, NYC (US);
- 1995, Kinght of Labour by Italian President O.L.Scalfaro;
- 2001, Prix Femmes d' Europe;
- 2002, Marisia Bellisario Awards and Lifetime Achievement Award, National Council of Italian Fashion. Meanwhile, the Italian post office issued a 41 EUR cent stamp with her name;
- 2004, Laura Biagiotti wrote the chapter about Fashion in the Treccani Encyclopedia. Meanwhile, she got the Lupa Capitolina award by the Rome Mayor, V. Veltroni;
- 2007, Crystal Lion Lifetime Achievemnet - Venice Casino Award
- 2008, Leonardo Award by the Italian President G. Napolitano.
- 2011, the Marco Polo award by Chinese government and the America Award of the ITA-USA Foundation.
Recently
it seems her brand was slowly hiddening on the international arena,
compared with its huge success during few decades before. Her
collections in net-a-porter became accessible to mass, meaning: cheaper,
increased sales and sometimes lower quality than during '80s. My
opinion is that the brand was then suffering the strong Chinese
competition (even in Tuscany where the italian - Chinese textile
district is).
Today her daughter, Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna, already
side by side with her mother during the last runways and sitting in the
National Council of Italian Fashion, will lead the brand to the future.
I
hope the new generation will give LB brand back the old fame
re-investing in quality and innovation (as the Cashmire Queen did during
her whole life).
Sources:
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