"One should not wear a dress, one should live in it," this was the most used quote by Emanuel Ungaro incorporated in the recent obituaries about him. The fashion designer died a week ago in Paris at the age of 86.
Born in Aix-en-Provence in southern France in 1933 to a family of Italian immigrants (his father was a tailor), Ungaro moved in his early twenties to Paris. Here he trained with Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga and with Courrèges and, in 1965, he presented his first collection after launching his own label with headquarters on Avenue Mac-Mahon in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.
As the years passed, Ungaro developed a ready-to-wear range and a menswear line, extending his label into perfumes, shoes, designer glasses and interior design pieces.
One of the participants in The Battle of Versailles, Ungaro became known for his bright colours and mix-and-match prints and patterns on liquid textiles.
In 1996 he formed a partnership with Ferragamo, but the years that followed proved difficult. In 2005, a year after retiring and leaving the artistic direction of the house to Giambattista Valli, he sold his label. Then a string of designers followed as creative directors, from catastrophic Lindsay Lohan in 2009, to Giles Deacon, Fausto Puglisi and Marco Colagrossi. Ungaro's style and his "One should not wear a dress, one should live in it" mantra are embodied in the film "Gloria" (1980) by John Cassavetes.
The plot revolves around a Puerto Rican family who gets killed by the mob. Gloria (Gena Rowlands), their neighbour, ends up with the sole survivor of the massacre, a young boy named Phil (John Adames).
The two do not care about each other and Gloria loves her independence and her clothes too much (she drags her big damasked suitcase containing her garments all over New York throughout the film...) to develop any maternal instincts. Besides, while Gloria may live a redeemed existence at the moment, she is actually well-known among the gangsters who killed Phil's family as she was a former call girl and the girlfriend of a criminal. Yet when gangsters start following them around New York trying to kill Phil, the two main characters develop respect and trust for each other. Gloria radically changes and doesn't hesitate to pull her gun from her purse, shoot and kill to protect the child.
Clothes play a great part in the film: when we first meet Gloria she is wearing a pajamas under a classic trench coat and high heeled sandals. She has run out of coffee and goes to ask her neighbours if they have any.
She is dressed casually and doesn't even get scared or worried when Phil's mother, a friend of hers, explains the situation and pleads her to take her children. "I hate children - above all, yours," Gloria replies, but eventually she agrees.
After the family is killed, Gloria doesn't cry or loses her nerves, but packs some clothes in her bag and runs away with Phil. From this point, her compact wardrobe becomes the co-protagonists of their adventures in New York, from the Bronx to Queens to Midtown.
Gloria first changes into a shiny silver jacket matched with a pleated skirt in the same shade and a shocking pink top, an outfit we see her wearing when she shoots at a car full of gangsters and then nonchalantly calls a taxi.
Later on we see her wearing an identical suit in black, matched with a red blouse to go and visit a graveyard with Phil. Gloria then pairs the black skirt with a shocking pink blouse and jacket with a stylized print of ears of wheat.
Towards the end of the film Gloria opts for a sensual wrap dress in a red and yellow print on a black background and a yellow collar to go and visit her former partner.
These outfits are practical and functional clothes that allow Gloria to run around New York and jump from one cab to another, from a subway train to a bus.
They are also versatile as they can be mixed and recombined with different tops and blouses, while the accessories remain the same: she wears indeed all the clothes with the same nude sandals, a long necklace with a stop-watch as a pendant, and a sling bag that is always on her shoulder as she uses it to carry her gun.
There’s something else that these clothes allow Gloria to do: as she can freely run in them, she can also shoot in them, Gloria doesn's indeed hesitate to use her gun, and in one case she fiercely and scarily looks into the camera with a gun in her hand, challenging the men who want to kidnap Phil, but also confronting the audience.
The designs, probably chosen by Gena Rowlands personally from Ungaro's boutique collection, are relevant to the story, and they are also perfectly matched with the actions: when Gloria shoots in the film for the first time she is wearing the "silver bullet" suit; she goes to a graveyard in a black attire, and speaks to her former lover in a sensual wrap dress.
In a way even Phil gets to know her through her clothes: when they arrive in a hotel towards the end of the film he takes them out of her bag and tenderly hangs them in the bathroom. While Gloria is tough, crazy and brave, she is also sensitive as she will show at the very end of the film with a surprising final transformation.
Gloria and that classic '80s mix of glamour and power, of disco moods and shoulder pads, and of shiny and bright silk and satin flowy skirt suits, is still inspiring designers: Silvia Venturini Fendi's turned indeed Gloria into her muse for Fendi's Resort 2020 collection.
The collection features plenty of skirt suits, functional separates and fluid and soft silk-twill pajama suits that merge masculine and feminine styles, blazers and pleated midi skirts with sensual high slits.
Classic trenchcoats and '80s high-waisted trousers, chic silk blouses and Gloria T-shirts accessorised with bags reminiscent of Gloria's own purse complete this collection that seems to offer a functional wardrobe that follows Ungaro's lesson about "living in a dress", rather than merely "wearing it".
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