Introduction – Early Origins of The Visconti Syndrome
Every year new words are added to our global vocabulary. Sometimes they relate to lifestyle and society, though, in the last few years, the latest discoveries and researches in the scientific and technological fields provided us with extremely innovative and fascinating terms.
Yet I never thought that the name and surname of an Italian director, Luchino Visconti, could have turned into a trendy and fashionable adjective.
Because of the length, themes, elaborate researches and intense screenplays behind his films, Visconti is often considered by people who don’t know that well his works as an extremely boring director.
I myself had problems in convincing even academic institutions to do at least one lecture on fashion and Visconti, to rediscover his films and the work of some of the great costume designers and tailoring houses that collaborated with him.
But some of the recent menswear catwalk shows changed everything and now even my utterly un-trendy posts about costumes in The Leopard and in Death in Venice, art and fashion in Senso or product placement in Boccaccio 70, can be considered as - wow! - cutting edge.
It should actually be highlighted that the “Visconti Syndrome” – a rare condition that implies referencing ad nauseam the films shot by the Italian director, in particular The Leopard – started in January, with Dolce & Gabbana’s Autumn/Winter 2010-11 menswear collection.
The latter was the umpteenth journey the Italian design duo took to Sicily, (as usual) transfigured into a mythical and mystical cinematic land that doesn’t actually exist.
Black prevailed, coppola hats weren’t missing and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Baaria clips were projected on the background, but the first signs of the "Visconti-The Leopard Syndrome" were clear in the contrasts between models wearing worn out thick jumpers Vs young men in elegant evening wear, velvet, flannel and pinstriped suits, metaphorically re-staging the antagonisms between the farmers and the aristocrats in Visconti’s classic.
The most skilled critics even detected references in the final vests to the virile looks of young drifter Gino in Obsession. Luckily the average person out there has a limited knowledge of Visconti’s filmography otherwise we would have read further references involving the thick jumpers of the fishermen in La terra trema (The Earth Trembles), the coats of Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His brothers) and other likely/unlikely connections. But that was just the beginning of the "Visconti Syndrome".
Let’s move the scene to six months later, in mid-June and in Florence where Haider Ackermann was invited to the Pitti trade show as a special guest.
The event took place at Palazzo Corsini, a wonderful building in late Baroque style overlooking the Arno River.
It took over 50 years to build this splendid Palazzo that includes a beautiful U-shaped courtyard, while the paintings inside it, commissioned by the Corsini family to Anton Domenico Gabbiani, Alessandro Gherardini and Pier Dandini, were made between 1692 and 1700.
Unfortunately, while it took so many years to build the place and almost one decade to decorate it inside, it took us roughly one hour and a half to reduce the place to a sad circus full of poseurs with very little knowledge of fashion history and cinema.
But nowadays nobody cares, in fact, the more ignorant you are, the further you go, especially in the fashion industry.
The location was also supposed to evoke the opulence and wealth seen in the ball scene in The Leopard, but, at the door of the Palazzo, we had only managed to reproduce the "farmers Vs aristocrats" tensions.
Confusion over invitations and photographers’ passes caused a major chaos and, hating injustices (and ignorant fashion poseurs who shouldn’t be admitted anywhere in the world, but who are currently revered as iconic legends and given not only invitation cards, but also numbered seats...), I accidentally – remember, “accidentally” – dragged after myself a little group of brave female photographers (and one male photographers who happened to be there, just to create some kind of equality among the sexes...).
Inside we were greeted by more aristocratic tensions in the form of one particular representative of the Italian fashion industry, annoyingly introducing himself to other influential people while highlighting at the same time that his daughter had just completed a master in fashion from a prestigious American institution (can’t you just give her a job in one of the companies you work for?).
Having therefore suddenly been reminded why most of us should thank God for being born in ordinary and honest families with no powerful links, I crossed the Loggia and entered the Donna Elena Hall.
Here visitors were greeted by a long table covered in bowls overflowing with red fruits, and lit by the soft lights of opulent candelabra.
Even without the seminal timballo from The Leopard, this was slowly turning into Visconti’s set in the Palermo-based Palazzo Ganci, complete with candles melting in the torrid hot weather, extras fainting and The Leopard's “scimmiette” (monkey girls), annoying little gossipy girls in colourful crinoline dresses à la Worth, sadly embodied by a horde of fashion poseurs.
Luckily we were given something to distract ourselves with, a book entitled Carnet de Voyage, the evening’s giveaway.
The latter actually made me hope that another fashion world is possible after all - could we indeed manage to raise the standards a bit if designers started leaving books on the seats of the people invited to catwalk shows rather than silly presents?
Mind you, while the book tried to be a sort of compendium of Ackermann's inspirations, it also implied a certain degree of pretentiousness especially in the slightly pompous essays, lists of songs and of inspiring figures, among them actors, artists, writers and directors (Marchesa Luisa Casati, Pasolini, Mastroianni…) and images and pictures taken from magazines and books (including a rather famous photograph of dandy poet and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, wrapped up in a towel on the beach of Francavilla al Mare, taken by Francesco Paolo Michetti - fifth image in this post, left page, a very popular image in Italy, but probably unknown abroad).
The lavish atmosphere of the main hall and adjacent rooms continued in the courtyard where decadent chandeliers reinforced the idea of the ball scene in The Leopard, with one main difference: with hindsight, I’m sure that the insistently pounding rhythms that could be heard playing in the background before the show started weren’t clever sound effects recorded for the occasion by an electronic band, but the corpses of Luchino Visconti and Umberto Tirelli rolling in their tombs (I wish costume designer Piero Tosi, who is the sole survivor of this mighty trio, could have seen this event...).
Wearing a long liquid ensemble and an unfastened dressing gown that revealed a spine bone tattoo, Jamie Bochert sashayed through the chairs and sofas creating a labyrinth in the courtyard and sat at the piano opening the event
Entitled “Opium”, this collection, or rather "wardrobe" or “vision for a collection” as Ackermann explained to me at the end of the event, featured 14 designs.
Men's wear prevailed, though there was a sort of tendency to erase the differences between genders in all the designs.
As showed in his Carnet de Voyage, Ackermann took a trip through exotic lands, coming back with a trunk full of densely embroidered fabrics criss-crossed by golden threads, refined silks, kimono-like jackets in Indian sari-like fabrics, striped pyjama trousers, leopard prints and peacock feather slippers.
The opium den mood prevailed, oozing from every fabric and every apparently carelessly, but actually carefully studied layered look ("I didn't do any researches for what regards the fabrics in the archives, the different fabrics represent what you find along the road and put on your shoulders," the designer explained me), symbolising the condition of a man "wandering, travelling with his mind, soul and heart", Ackermann told me.
The women's designs fluidly flowed on the body, languidly and sensually leaving trails behind the models.
There were just a couple of architectural touches here and there, especially in the rigid fabric tongues embracing the models' waists, exploding in a petal-like formation at the hip or on the back.
While interesting, these confessions of a Florentine opium eater gone on a long trip to far away exotic lands wasn’t exactly new (expert eyes detected echoes of Gianfranco Ferré and Romeo Gigli here and there) or extremely convincing.
At the end of the catwalk, after the trip to the Orient and other exotic lands was over, we were taken back to the Visconti set, as a group of waiters carried champagne and desserts.
Gossip of the evening: the designer had asked only for mature waiters for this final moment, pissing off the catering service that had to spend some time replacing its young staff.
Having taken part in this fake transformation of Palazzo Corsini into Donnafugata with Angelica and Tancredi replaced by a couple of unsufferable fashion poseurs, I felt like the Prince of Salina during the ball scene, slightly disgusted by the vainglorious men and women who surrounded him, yet at the same time feeling almost compassion for their ephemeral existences.
Scene 2 – The Silent (Milanese) Visconti Syndrome
The exotic syndrome that took Ackermann on a trip to Africa, India and Japan and back to his atelier, was caused in Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi’s case by a photograph of two yogis sitting in front of their hut that they found in a book about India in Ferré’s library.
This is the main reason why, for the next season, the duo opted for shantung cream tuxedos, cream suits matched with leopard slippers, metallic jacquard jackets and shorts, Nehru-collared shirts, linen kimono-like shirts with delicate motifs that called to mind the embroideries on crisp pillow cases and bed sheets.
Relaxed lines and ample silhouettes gave the design duo the chance to break with their more architectural inspirations, but the Indian palette for this collection was infused with the dusty, yellowy and burnt orange tones of Visconti’s landscapes in The Leopard.
Yet there was also another cinematic inspiration behind this East-meets-West mood: Mastroianni as Arthur Meursault in Visconti’s Lo straniero (The Stranger), wearing suits in neutral shades contrasting with the crumbling yellowish walls of the Algerian settings and environments.
The final result was definitely less perfectly choreographed and staged compared to Ackermann’s collection, yet this sort of muted Visconti Syndrome kept firmly in mind one important point, saleability.
Scene 3 – Cinematically Confused in Paris
Many of us live in a sort of film-inspired world and wake up everyday dreaming of being a different film star or character out of their favourite films.
If ordinary people can live a somehow film-inspired life, it was only natural for flamboyant John Galliano to mix and mesh in just one collection more than one movie icon and film.
The show opened with a Charlie Chaplin figure emerging from a giant pocket watch clock at the back of the runway in Modern Times-style.
Yet the figure and the clock mechanisms surrounding him weren’t really a social commentary about dehumanising technology and modern labour conditions, but the perfect symbol for the new Galliano silhouette for the next Spring/Summer season, that is shrunken jackets worn with nothing underneath, baggy dropped-crotch trousers and big shoes.
The Little Tramp first transformed into a sort of urban version of the orphan in The Kid, but then a new cinematic reference to Buster Keaton materialised on the runway with models donning dandy-like luxurious lurex trench coats and cream coloured three-piece suits, straw hats and a rather lugubrious make-up.
The watch at the back of the runway and the straw hats also seemed to be a reference to Harold Lloyd hanging from a huge
clock dangling high above the city in Safety Last!
Then the Visconti Syndrome took over and Galliano managed to convey a Death in Venice-meets-Lo straniero mood in one single look.
The most lugubrious aspects of the Buster Keaton look were emphasised by wrapping the models’ heads in a thin black veil, reminiscent of the images of Visconti’s mother Carla Erba wearing hats wrapped up in yards of tulle who inspired the look of the main female characters in Death in Venice.
The creamy designs matched with satin ribbon
espadrilles were reminiscent of the fine suits worn by the male characters and in particular by Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach in Visconti's film, but the black mourning band worn on some of the jackets reminded of Arthur Meursault (Marcello Mastroianni)' look at his mother's funeral in Lo straniero.
There was also a relapse into Death in Venice in the underwear/beachwear section with a model wearing a blue vest and bathing suit that called to mind the Lido and Tadzio’s costumes.
Towards the end of his collection, having found the cure to the Visconti Syndrome, Galliano went back to Hollywood with a series of black modern and at times conceptual designs in materials such as leather and lace.
Will the Visconti Syndrome be replicated also in the Haute Couture fashion shows? Will we see Angelica’s ball dress appearing on the Haute Couture runways? We’ll see what happens tomorrow as Haute Couture Week opens.
For the time being, there is only one thing left to add: the fashion industry may have turned to Visconti as a source of inspiration, but so far it only grasped – more or less well – the moods, colours, atmospheres, contrasts and tensions in his films, while it has forgotten to learn the most important lesson from Sicilian nobleman Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina.
At the end of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s book and Visconti’s film, the Prince understands that times have changed and contemplates the slow but relentless decline of the local aristocracy.
Though the fashion industry is usually extremely quick to grasp new trends from the street and relaunch them, it doesn’t seem to have understood that well the changes we have gone through in the last few years.
So far inviting a few young and selected hip bloggers (who end up writing positive reviews of the fashion events they are invited to...) to catwalk shows has been the most cutting edge thing some fashion houses have done.
Yet surely forming an army of loyal fashionistas mainly using people who have managed to get a good readership through their blogs can't save the industry in the long run.
Indeed the fashion industry can only be saved by taking the catwalks out of the Palazzo and into the streets, involving all ordinary people (and not only the ones you like because they're anorexic/famous enough to be invited) and allowing them to judge a collection, honestly criticise it and eventually buy some pieces out of it.
As it was often underlined by the people who worked on The Leopard - also screenwriter Suso Cecchi d’Amico - this epic movie was a collective effort involving the main actors, actresses, extras, costume, set and make up designers and so on.
In the same way, fashion is a collective effort, involving a lot of energies and many talented and skilled people and in this collective effort there can't be any space for aristocratic elitism anymore.
Don Fabrizio represented the old order, but also acknowledged the changing world. Thinking like the Prince of Salina will maybe save fashion, that’s probably the only way the Visconti Syndrome will give its best results.
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