I don’t like boasting, but I must be honest: if I had been given a penny for all the times I’ve been stopped in the street (even by road workers – thank you, guys!) while walking around Philadelphia and New York for my car necklace, I would be rich by now.
I know for sure I ended in the personal photo albums of a few groups of tourists from as far away as Argentina and Japan and I think I will be responsible for a car necklace trend that may invade first the States and then move onto Europe. Yet, this is not the main point of this post.
Judging from the smile on people’s faces and from the stupor caused by a rather funny and very cheap necklace almost entirely made of plastic and bursting with Pop Art superficiality, most consumers aren’t looking at the moment for extremely expensive and boring stuff, but for pieces that can be fun, surreal and, well, affordable.
It doesn’t matter what they tell you about the luxury market and its growth in countries like Asia, since luxury is essentially dedicated to a very small part of the global population.
Despite what fashion magazines, blogs and other assorted publications rant about, most of us can’t really afford designer clothes and accessories (in fact not even Anna Dello Russo could probably afford what she wears if she weren’t given it for free…but we'll get back on this point in future posts maybe).
So, in between walking and being stopped, I started pondering a bit and wondered which designer/label created in the past very affordable, Pop Art and fun clothes and accessories and only one name came to my mind, Fiorucci.
Founded in May 1967, Fiorucci was sold in the 90s to a Japanese company and produced in the last few years rather banal collections.
In the meantime, the company's founder Elio Fiorucci mainly focused on a young line (“Baby Angel”) for Italian High Street retailer Oviesse (mainly made in China garments, with some pieces made in Italy) and another average line called “Love Therapy”.
The designer was spotted during Milan Fashion Week chatting with Anna Wintour at an event dedicated to young fashion designers and I genuinely hope he was illustrating her his new plans to conquer the world for the second time, rather than reminding her of the Fiorucci heydays.
In the 70s, Fiorucci opened a shop in NY designed by Ettore Sottssass (I mean, Ettore Sottssass – argh!), Andrea Branzi and Franco Marabelli, that soon became very popular with the local scene: Andy Warhol launched his Interview Magazine there in 1977, signing copies of the magazine (and of a book they had done together) with Truman Capote (Truman Capote – double argh!), Ruben Toledo used to do windows displays for it, his wife Isabel sold her clothes there and Maripol launched her jewellery line there in 1978.
In a fashion industry that mainly regurgitates every year the same bland ideas from the past (remember the Marc Jacobs-Maripol’s gummy jewellery launched a few months ago?), I would like to launch an appeal to Elio Fiorucci: dear Elio, could you please reissue the entire Fiorucci product line from the 80s?
If consumers are after something funny, colourful and cheap, I guess this is the right time to put out on the market again the shocking pink plastic beach baskets with cut out motifs of palms, the colourful harness bell necklaces, the neon coloured scarves with little prints of the iconic Fiorucci cherubs, the outrageous 1967 gladiators sandals and the plastic hairpins with planets (mine is 27 years old, so I may need a new one soon...).
Many people out there remember Fiorucci as the first brand that created innovative products such as stretch denim trousers.
For me this brand represented something much more important, a way to put out on the market new ideas, show how Italy was able to launch innovative trends (a skill that my home country has sadly lost, looking too much outside its boundaries to find the next big thing) and influence entire scenes like New York's.
Time to resurrect "Fiorucciland", then? Probably, yes. In the meantime, where did I put my beloved Panini for Fiorucci sticker album?
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love the necklace! and i wanted to say it's been interesting to see my city through your eyes. you spotted a few things i didn't even notice before and i've been living here many years. shameful! :)
Posted by: Alison Nastasi | October 26, 2010 at 05:56 AM