There are costumes that enter the history of cinema, turning into iconic moments of fashion, maybe for their uniqueness, the materials they were made of or a particular scene in which they were featured.
Yet there are also costumes that entered the history of television. Italy's state television Rai had a few famous hosts, but one of them will be forever linked to fashion for her empowering costumes – Raffaella Carrà.
The Italian actor, singer, dancer and TV host died yesterday at 78, as announced by her long-term partner, choreographer Sergio Japino. The news left millions of fans in Italy, Spain and Latin America in mourning.
Born in Bologna in 1943, Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni, known as Raffaella Carrà, studied dance and acting, starring first in a few peplum films and appearing in Mark Robson's World War II drama "Von Ryan's Express" (1965) with Frank Sinatra.
She then became more famous as a singer, dancer and co-host of programmes on Italy’s state TV Rai, such as variety show "Canzonissima" that allowed her to rise to fame.
Her songs, dance, music numbers and outfits made history for inspiring freedom, empowering women and sparking an uproar with the most conservative fringes of society.
When in 1976 she donned a cropped top matched with flared trousers, she became the first woman to expose her midriff on TV in Italy. Her bellybutton revealing costumes became her trademark, but were also the cause of fury and were considered as scandalous
Yet Raffaella Carrà was never vulgar nor exploited: in 1976, she sang her first major international hit, "A Far l'Amore Comincia Tu" (translated in English as "Do It, Do It Again"), which invited women "to be the one initiating sex" (the literal translation of the title), manifesting their sexual desires to their lovers.
At the end of the '70s Raffaella Carrà became very popular in Spain and Latin America; she returned to Italian TV in 1978 to host another RAI variety show and she was back in Spain when Televisión Española hired her again to conduct the live show "Hola Raffaella" between 1992 and 1993.
In more recent years Carrà was a judge on talent show "The Voice" in Italy, while a Spanish musical film based on her songs, "Explota Explota", a musical comedy set at the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1970s, in Spain, was released in 2020 (in 2018, the king of Spain made her a dame, "al orden del mérito civil", for being "an icon of freedom").
A gay and feminist icon as well, In 2017, Raffaella Carrà was celebrated with a gay icon prize during Madrid's WorldPride. In interviews Carrà often revealed her support to the LGBT+ community, highlighting she grew up with two mothers, her mum and her grandmother, after her mother separated from her father in 1945.
While her songs and dance routines became popular with millions of people all over the world, her blonde bob and costumes became her signatures.
Between the '60s and the '70s Carrà favoured looks inspired by Op Art, shorts and cropped tops especially in contrasting tones of black and white; but from the end of the '70s and throughout the '80s, her costumes started featuring intricate motifs of sequins, beads and crystals.
Red and gold were added to her favourite palette, while in the mid-'80s a pastel coloured dress with appliqued rhinestones became the joyful and optimistic symbol of a new Rai daily show, "Pronto…Raffaella?" (Carrà donned it during the opening titles).
Though incredibly successful – in her 60-year career she sold millions of records in almost 40 countries – Carrà always preserved her integrity.
Raffella Carrà’s myth developed with her wardrobe, created by costume designers who were loyal to her throughout her career – Corrado Colabucci, Luca Sabatelli and Gabriele Mayer.
Super short shorts, frivolous fringes of sequins, the joie de vivre of cascades of rhinestones, jumpsuits with cut-outs, feathers and cinched waists were the main ingredients of her glam, disco and pop wardrobe, striking designs that were still comfortable enough to dance in.
Some of the costumes (donned by mannequin with golden bob) they made for Carrà, with further designs by Enrico Rufini and Gabriella Pera, were displayed in 2018 at a Cinecittà exhibition that also featured a selection of sketches, accessories, videos and photographs.
The costumes included in this event came from different places – the historical archives of Rai (where they are still preserved), the archive of tailoring houses Annamode (founded in the late '40s by Anna and Teresa Allegri) and The One.
The latter is a relatively young Rome-based film and theatre tailoring house, founded by Alessandra Cinti, a collaborator of Gabriele Mayer, that preserves costumes from important collections and iconic films.
Other costumes came from Giovanni Gioia and Vincenzo Mola's Carrà collection. Gioia and Mola have been preserving bespoken costumes (around 400; they also restored some of them) made by different costume designers for the star that will hopefully allow more people in future to study the history of Italian TV and of fashion and society as well.
Carrà's costumes, covered in sequins and rhinestones, characterized by power shoulders and at times rather risqué, tell indeed the story of Italian television, but of society as well as they mirrored changes in style and trends.
The costumes that belonged to Raffaella Carrà are also the physical representation of a golden era for the Italian state TV: in its heydays Rai had its own corps de ballet and its tailoring house that, up until the mid-'90s, made all the costumes for the programme hosts and dancers.
Ten years ago fashion designer Holly Fulton used as the soundtrack for her runway Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol". Released in 1972, it was performed in 1974 on the show "Milleluci" with Carrà energetically dancing on its notes.
The track didn't mean anything, but was sung in a new unintelligible language that, its author claimed, was supposed to have a new universal meaning and spread love and joy, just like Carrà's sequins and rhinestones.