The Victorian horror/fantasy series Penny Dreadful featured visually striking costumes by the mighty Gabriella Pescucci. The Italian costume designer and Academy Award winner (for the costumes in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence) is a talented fashion researcher and connoisseur. Specialised in period costumes and famous for her passion for historical accuracy and philologically precise details that she mixes with a great fantasy, she has worked with directors as different as Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton.
In Penny Dreadful there is an inside joke at one point when the camera lingers in one scene on an atelier by a certain "Madame Pescucci".
Yet, come next March, "Madame Pescucci" may become a reality: Max Mara has indeed turned to the costume designer for a capsule collection for its casual outdoor Weekend line. For previous collections the company chose among the others American interior designer Anthony Baratta, and American artist Richard Saja, but this is the first time it works with a costume designer.
The collaboration was the result of a chance encounter between Max Mara Fashion Director Laura Lusuardi and Pescucci during a costume design exhibition about the Tirelli tailoring house. Lusuardi invited Pescucci to Reggio Emilia and, after visiting the brand's archives, the costume designer accepted the challenge of creating a capsule for the Weekend line.
The collaboration, entitled "On Set by Gabriella Pescucci", was unveiled during Milan Fashion Week and moves from three main inspirations - The Age of Innocence, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and TV series The Borgias created by Neil Jordan.
Scorsese's film with its crinolines and elegant gowns inspired designs in cotton, organdie and linen, such as embroidered cutaway tops with bell sleeves, white shirts with broderie anglaise-like laser-cut motifs and lace skirts.
Pescucci's passion for the ocean and the scene with Uma Thurman coming out of the shell like Botticellli's Venus in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" inspired a coat and skirt with shells and coral branches, elements replicated also on the accessories such as the "Pasticcino" (pastry) bag in pastel colours and in the embellishments of strappy thong sandals, while tops and shirts with puffed or flared sleeves, braided elements and ruffles, hint at Lucrezia Borgia's costumes.
The collection will be available on-line and in all Weekend Max Mara shops from March, but, in the meantime, Pescucci is back on the set, working on a series for Sky Atlantic (working title "Domina"), about Livia Drusilla, wife of Roman emperor Augustus.
Pescucci is not the first Italian designer collaborating with a famous fashion company: Milena Canonero has influenced fashion with her costumes (the safari styles she created in "Out of Africa" and the uniform she designed for the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange", sparked fashion trends...). After "Chariots of Fire", she was asked to design clothes for Norman Hilton and she designed a collection that won her a special Coty Award.
So collaborating with a costume designer is certainly not new for a fashion brand, but this collaboration offers the chance to younger generations to think more about the great connection between fashion and film (and see how a cinematic inspiration can be adapted from the set to real life...), while finally acknowledging the influence that iconic costume designers always had on the fashion industry, something that is rarely done.
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