The Milanese trend that started earlier on today continues now with this second post about a volume on the Teatro alla Scala that I found at the weekend in a second hand bookshop.
The volume is entitled "The Portraits of Elegance - Teatro alla Scala" and was actually a supplement given out in December 2004 with Vogue Italia to celebrate the opera house reopening.
The volume features several images from the Farabola archives – all taken between the early 50s and the early 70s – and portray ladies wearing glamorous evening gowns and furs at various season openings.
La Scala reopened after Second World War on 11th May 1946 with a concert directed by Arturo Toscanini. At the time Paris was celebrating the rebirth of fashion with Dior, while the Milanese tailoring houses were slowly starting again to produce their own designs.
In 1951 the season at La Scala was opened for the first time on 7th December rather than on the 26th as usual.
The new opening coincided with the arrival of a singer destined to become very famous, Maria Callas.
From the 50s on crowds started gathering in front of the theatre to admire the celebrities and aristocrats going to the season opening performances. Wearing glamorous dresses became the norm and while Parisian designers were still favoured by many women, the openings at La Scala also helped new designers and tailoring houses emerging, among them also Jole Veneziani, Gigliola Curiel, Pirovano, Livoli, Tizzoni, Farioli, Federico Forquet, Germana Marucelli and Mila Schön.
In 1953 Maria Callas appeared visibly thinner than on her debut, gossips spread in the theatre about the diet she had followed, but among the “authors” of her transformation into a sophisticated woman there was also an Italian designer, Elvira Leonardi Bouyeure, better known as Biki, who dressed the singer for the next 25 years. Biki would send Maria Callas dresses and accessories accompanied by little numbers and booklets that showed her how to match the various garments and items.
The first portraits of women (from the early 50s) featured in the volume I got, show a sort of restrained elegance. Though wearing nice evening dresses, women looked more natural and didn’t wear a lot of make-up.
In the mid-50s things started changing: women became slimmer, make-up became heavier and designer dresses - often made in precious fabrics and featuring beaded embroideries, gems and feathers - became the norm.
The 60s brought another change: the first mini-skirts started appearing even at such formal events such as La Scala openings, while designer Eva Sabbatini arrived at the theatre with models dressed up in long capes with crystal frog fastenings and bi-coloured hairstyles created by the Vergottini family.
The 1968 student demos gave a new meaning to the opening season at La Scala, turning the attention from fashion and high society to social equality.
In later years animal right associations organised anti-fur campaign events that coincided with the openings. More recently bland celebrities increasingly used the event as a platform to get noticed, turning those first stylish La Scala openings into distant glamorous and stylish fables lost in time.
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