Between the end of the '40s and the early '50s when the modern history of Italian fashion was just starting, there were no professional models, but aristocratic women would often pose for photographers such as Pasquale De Antonis in sumptuous gowns created by the new Italian ateliers. Among these elegant women there was also Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto, who died yesterday at 91 at her family home in Turin.
Born in 1927 in Florence from a noble family (her father was a Neapolitan aristocrat, Don Filippo Caracciolo, 8th Prince di Castagneto, and her mother was the former Margaret Clarke of Peoria, Illinois), she was educated in Paris at the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian.
An assistant to Erwin Blumenfeld in New York City, occasional editor and photographic contributor to Vogue, as a model she was portrayed in dresses by designers such as Gabriella di Robilant or the Fontana Sisters in the late '40s, and also became a muse for designer Federico Forquet.
In 1953 she was propelled to fashion fame when Richard Avedon took her picture: the photographer chose for her a pose that highlighted her long, graceful and sinuous neck that called to mind a Modigliani portrait and that earned her a peculiar nickname - "The Swan".
In the same year she married Fiat tycoon and jet-setter Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli and they would remain married until his death in 2003. They had two children Edoardo, who died in 2000, and Margherita, mother of current Fiat Chrysler Chairman John Elkann (and of Ginevra and Lapo Elkann, from the marriage with Alan Elkann, and of Pietro, Sofia, Maria, Anna and Tatiana, the children of Margherita and Serge de Pahlen).
Marella also designed textiles: in 1973, she created a textile line for Abraham-Zumsteg, for which she was awarded the "Product Design Award of the Resources Council Inc." (the design trade's equivalent of the Oscar) in 1977. She collaborated with Ratti in Como, Steiner in Paris, as well as Martex and Marshall Field's in the United States.
Passionate about gardening, she authored a number of books on the subject, such as the 1987 bestseller "Giardini Italiani", but essentially remained a 20th-century symbol of elegance and culture in Italy and was portrayed in Douglas McGrath's "Infamous" (2006) by Isabella Rossellini.
Marella was one of Truman Capote's circle of "swans", wealthy, stylish, and well-married women friends that also included Lee Radziwill and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
As her pictures with Jackie in Amalfi in 1962 prove, Marella was an ideal meeting point between Italy's aristocratic past and the new glamourous jet set, she loved indeed evening wear, but also appreciated modern functional clothes and practical designers such as André Courrèges (she was portrayed in his designs in a 1967 photoshoot by Henry Clarke for Vogue). She considered fashion as a form of expression, but also as a sort of screen, a shield that could protect and transform the wearer into somebody else.
Marella was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1963 and in 1966 at Truman Capote's Black and White Ball she opted for a Mila Schön kaftan made by 30 dressmakers and embroiderers (according to the legend it took the team over 1500 hours to make the outfit).
She was proclaimed the most elegant lady of the evening, followed by Lee Radziwill, Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister, also wearing a Schön creation.
Marella was an avid art collector (Andy Warhol also did a portrait of her), was honorary president of the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli in Turin, and sat on the board of art institutions, including the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
She had a strong connection with Niki de Saint Phalle via her two brothers, Carlo Caracciolo, co-founder of the newspaper La Repubblica, and Nicola Caracciolo, who offered Niki a part of their property in Garavicchio, Tuscany, for her Giardino dei Tarocchi.
As the years passed, Marella continued to be an inspiration for fashion designers: Valentino considered her a style icon like Jackie Kennedy; Giambattista Valli's Pre-Fall 2009 collection moved from her style and her autobiographical "The Last Swan" published in 2014 by Rizzoli and penned with her niece, inspired Johnny Talbot and Adrian Runhof's S/S 16 collection.
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