Most of you remember Patrizia Reggiani's name in conjunction with that of her husband Maurizio Gucci.
In 1998 Reggiani was sentenced to 26 years in jail for ordering the killing of her estranged husband Maurizio three years earlier.
Patrizia Reggiani and Maurizio Gucci met at a party in 1970. Maurizio immediately fell in love with young Patrizia, whose resemblance with Elizabeth Taylor was striking at the time. Two years later they got married against the will of Rodolfo, Maurizio's father. Reconciliation eventually took place and, after a brief spell in New York, the couple went back to Milan.
Their return coincided with the city becoming a fashion capital with new and exciting designers such as Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani and Gianfranco Ferré arriving on the scene. Hoping to enter the ready-to-wear market, Gucci hired Luciano Soprani to design its first apparel collection.
In the meantime, ambitious Patrizia started helping Maurizio with the family business, and even convinced him to allow her to design a luxury line of jewellery that went under the name Oro Coccodrillo.
The latter featured extremely flashy pieces printed with a crocodile pattern, encrusted with precious stones and sold in Gucci's boutiques at such impossibly high prices that the brand revealed itself as a failure and a source of general embarrassment even for the Gucci salespeople.
As the years passed, Maurizio assumed key roles at his family's company, but his insatiable thirst for power pushed him to start resenting his wife's suggestions, advice and pressures.
The couple split in the mid-'80s; roughly ten years later in March 1995, a killer murdered Maurizio outside his luxury home in Milan city centre. The event was recorded by Patrizia in her Cartier diary with a single word: "Paradeisos" (Paradise).
Reggiani's name reappeared in the Italian newspapers two years ago when she refused an earlier chance at parole stating "I've never worked in my life and I'm certainly not going to start now."
"The Black Widow", as Reggiani is known by the Italian press, was back in the news yesterday.
A judge recently suspended her sentence and wait to decide over her lawyer's request of entrusting her to the social services and let her spend the last three years of her sentence working for Milanese fashion brand Bozart.
A while back, Reggiani sent indeed a request for collaboration to the company Srl Argea, owner of the Bozart brand.
Yesterday, after the sentence was suspended, Reggiani was released from the San Vittore prison where she had been serving her time since 1997.
Alessandra Brunero, who co-owns with her husband Maurizio Manca the Bozart brand - founded in 1956 and mainly producing jewellery and men and women's accessories - told the ANSA news agency Reggiani could maybe work as style consultant, or advise them on supplies and window displays. While they claimed they were surprised about the request, Brunero added: "We are really happy to be able to help her".
Somehow you wish this was a fake story, a publicity stunt that somebody put together since Milan Fashion Week is kicking off soon. Because, you see, while jail should help rehabilitating an offender and, therefore, for human right reasons, Reggiani should be entitled to work, you really wonder why they would be keen on hiring someone who claimed she has never wanted to work in her life (so maybe she considers this position as fun and not work?) and how she could work in the style office of a fashion brand with her murderous past and her failed attempts at designing an accessory line.
You could argue she hasn't had any contacts with the fashion world for so many years, but this reason would also play against her - after all, if even people who work in the industry quite often get left behind by the relentless rhythms of fashion, how could Reggiani (aged 64) re-enter them so easily after 16 years in prison?
For some, Reggiani has been a victim of her own ambitions and of some obnoxious characters she met along the way in her previous "socialite life"; for others, she was a spoiled woman devoted to the art of obsessively splashing money (even her previous lawyer stated about her "Reggiani is and remains a mystery even to us, her defence attorneys", at the appeal trial in 2000).
Yet this story makes you stop and wonder about something else as well: would the owners of ANY fashion house/brand ever help an anonymous previous offender by offering them a job? Would they indeed be happy to help a woman who has been in a previous life a prostitute, a drug addict or a murderer? Probably not.
Bizarre then to think that companies who may not want to help (and pay!) talented students with great ideas and with no criminal records to enter the fashion world, may be keep to help such characters to re-enter it. It's as if having a darker personality verging towards the psychotic, the mad and the murderous is much more fascinating in the fashion industry than being a honest person.
There is actually a better job for Reggiani: known for her notes in her diary - among the others ''There is no crime that money cannot buy" and "I'd rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle" - she should be a screenwriter and not spend her time "working" in the fashion industry. In fact,since the film that Ridley Scott was supposed to shoot about the Gucci saga has been stalled for years and undergone many writing changes with the direction passing from Scott to his daughter Jordan, they may as well hire the Italian Black Widow to write some bits and pieces. After all, this wouldn't be hard work for her as she would just need to re-open her old diaries and copy her own quotes.
PS Only for Gucci fans: A musical entitled "Mrs Gucci", documenting Reggiani's life and starring Julie Atherton and Sophie Louise Dann will be staged at the Arts Theatre London on 13th October 2013. Looks like the glamorous lives of the rich, obnoxious and murderous continues to be a fascinating subject both on the stage and on the big screen.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments