If you have a genuine interest in the history of fashion and want to study it, you must remember that this topic should be explored discovering also other disciplines and art forms - including cinema and theatre - that may be connected with fashion. Quite often, indeed, collections take inspiration from a film, a director or an actor, or a fashion house turns an iconic film star into its muse.
That has been the case throughout the decades with Monica Vitti, who died yesterday at 90 in Rome. Antonioni's films in which she appeared often provided inspirations for collection palettes and moods, while her style was evoked at times on Prada's runways (Miuccia has always been a fan of the actress; check out Monica Vitti's black and white fox fur stole in "Modesty Blaise" and compare it to the bi-coloured stoles in Prada's S/S 2011).
Born in Rome in 1931, Vitti (her real name was Maria Luisa Ceciarelli; her stage name came from her mother's maiden name, Vittiglia), discovered her passion for the stage during the Second World War and often stated that, having decided to put an end to her life when she was 14, it was her love for performing that saved her. She studied at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome graduating in the early '50s. She then starred in theatre plays, shining for her comic skills, while working also in post-synchronisation.
The first film in which she appeared was Edoardo Anton's "Ridere! Ridere! Ridere!" (Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!, 1954), that consisted in a series of comical sketches, and then in Glauco Pellegrini's "Una pelliccia di visone" (The mink fur coat, 1956), the story of a fur coat that changes the fate of a modest family conjuring up the possibility of a life of riches.
Mario Amendola's "Le dritte" (1958) followed, another comedy this time about three young women with one main aim in life – getting married. In the film Vitti starred as Ofelia, a stylish boutique owner with an impeccable taste (check out her Gucci bamboo bag...), who ends up organizing a mini-fashion runway with her friends Edna and Rina to seduce the men they hope to marry.
After meeting Michelangelo Antonioni, Vitti became his muse and partner appearing in his famous trilogy - "L'avventura" (The Adventure, 1960), "La notte" (The Night, 1961) and "L'eclisse" (The Eclipse, 1962) - three films about alienation in modern society, solitude, the failure of romance and relationships and the inability of human beings to communicate.
The plot of the first movie in the trilogy, "L'avventura", revolves around the mysterious disappearance of Anna (Lea Massari) during a yachting trip along the Sicilian coast with her friends. Her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) start looking for her and eventually develop an intense attraction for each other.
Monica Vitti, in costumes designed by Adriana Berselli made by Rome-based Annamode, starred in the role of a woman full of doubts, fears, frustrations and anxieties. This film is often considered an "architectural" film for its juxtaposition between natural and built environments (it was included in a selection of films played in an installation at the 14th Venice International Architecture Exhibition).
In "La notte", Vitti, on this occasion a brunette, starred as Valentina, an elegant society girl. The smart suits and dresses worn by the characters in this film hinted at their position in society, but also at their inner condition, contributing to create that "chic existentialism" that characterized many Antonioni's films.
Costume-wise, Vitti's wardrobe in "L'eclisse" (by costume designers Bice Brichetto and Gitt Magrini) assumed a more important role in the narration than the costumes in "La notte".
"L'eclisse" was inspired by a sun eclipse that occurred in Florence in 1961: the sudden cold, silence, darkness and stillness prompted Antonioni to wonder if during an eclipse also human feelings suddenly freeze and get somehow "eclipsed".
In the film Monica Vitti starred as Vittoria, who splits up from her boyfriend Riccardo (Francisco Rabal), an intellectual. She then meets a stockbroker, Piero (Alain Delon), but this new love affair is doomed.
The costumes in this film are often used as symbols: Vittoria is a static character who never changes throughout the film, she always wears the same boatneck tunic tops with matching skirts. Her smart but simple and often monochromatic look, fits her bored state of mind while the colours of the dresses hint at the dramas she's living: she wears a black dress when she's splitting up from Riccardo, a white one during her brief love affair with Piero, a print dress when she finds herself surrounded by the chaos of the Stock Exchange. Vittoria's style and the geometrical cut of her dresses also match the background and the modern and urban architecture of the buildings of the EUR area in Rome.
Vitti also appeared in Antonioni's "Il Deserto Rosso" (Red Desert, 1964) as Giuliana, a complicated character that perfectly expresses the unbearable pain of living in our modern and complex times.
Married to Ugo, the plant manager of the factory that dominates the landscape around them, Giuliana is locked in a depressed and mentally tortured condition, an alienation and emotional isolation made worse by the polluted landscape of the factory belching steam and sinister yellow smoke in a bleak sky.
Cinematographer Carlo Di Palma's evocative light and colours in this film inspired the main palette for different fashion collections, but, in the last few years, there have been designers who took inspiration from the actual screenplay.
Erika Cavallini had the famous quotes from "Deserto Rosso" - "Mi fanno male i capelli, gli occhi, la gola, la bocca" (My hair hurts, my eyes, my throat, my mouth; actually taken from a poem by Amelia Rosselli) - printed on the back of an ample hoodie in her Pre-Fall 2019 collection.
After "Red Desert", Vitti had a lead role in "Modesty Blaise" (1966), directed by Joseph Losey and based on Peter O'Donnell's comic strip. While it was rather unsuccessful, the film was a triumph of style and fashion, with futuristic and Op Art sets.
Mod-couture abounds in this film mixed with more classic looks: Vitti (who has a fashion related dialogue at some point: "Modesty, where did you go that last day in Paris when you said you were going to Balenciaga?" "Christian Dior!") looks stylish in the film especially when she wears classic clothes with an almost surreal touch (costumes for this film were designed by Beatrice Dawson) like a yellow shantung coat with a matching horn speaker-shaped rigid hood that opens up like a flower.
In the film, Vitti's hairstyle changes continuously and her Mod-meets-classic fashion attires together with her adoption of the same dress towards the end of the movie but in three different colours (white, black and pale blue) symbolised the multiple personalities incarnated by the comic strip character.
Monica Vitti's relationship with Antonioni ended in 1967 and, the following year, she starred in Mario Monicelli's "La Ragazza con la Pistola" (The Girl With a Pistol).
In this film Vitti is a young Sicilian woman who turns from rape victim seeking revenge with a weapon in her hand to empowered independent woman. This is another great film in which fashion plays a role in the life of the main character.
When the film starts, we see Vitti as a dark-haired Sicilian girl wearing black from head to toe. Dishonoured, she is given a gun by her family and told she must take her revenge.
She therefore leaves her village in search of the man who dishonoured her and her chase takes her from Sicily to Edinburgh. Here we see her in a vinyl black coat: it's still black, but it is shiny, modern and on trend. More fashionable designs follow, while the main character changes her hairstyle, dyes her hair red and starts wearing leather pants and going to peace demos, becoming towards the end of the movie a sophisticated woman, in a velvet dress, brown leather trench coat and matching boots.
In each of the episodes in "Noi donne siamo fatte così" (That's How We Women Are, 1971), directed by Dino Risi, Vitti changed costumes, hair colour and style, taking the role of a new protagonist, from a cymbal player who every day travels throughout the city with her massive case to play for just a few seconds in an orchestra to a Neapolitan mother with 22 children, a voluptuous motorcycle acrobat, a trade unionist striking for a pay rise and a brave and professional hostess who ends up having a panic crisis during a turbulence.
In the same way her characters changed their clothes in some of her films, to indicate progress in their lives, Vitti proved throughout her movies that she was a real chameleon.
For Antonioni she had been a muse of incommunicability, but she starred in dramas such as 1971 "La Pacifista" by Miklós Jancsó.
In this film Vitti is a journalist working on a feature about radical youth protests. Barbara is a pacifist and therefore neutral, but things change when she falls in love with a young man who may be a terrorist. Barbara's wardrobe in the film was borrowed from the Milanese boutique Gulp, founded in 1964 by fashion designer Gabriella Di Marco.
Vitti excelled in comedies, among the others "Dramma della Gelosia" (The Pizza Triangle, 1970), with Marcello Mastroianni and Giancarlo Giannini; Carlo Di Palma's "Teresa la Ladra" (Teresa the Thief, 1973) and "Polvere di Stelle" (Stardust, 1973) directed by and starring Alberto Sordi, the iconic story of two impoverished music-hall comics, a film characterised by cabaret numbers in bright and colourful costumes.
These films revealed her personality and proved that in real life she was extremely different from the alienated woman to whom she had so often been associated.
Her career continued in the '80s and in 1990, Vitti directed herself in "Scandalo Segreto" (Secret Scandal), co-starring Elliott Gould; in 1995 she was awarded a career Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival, in the same year she married director Roberto Russo. She then withdrew from public life as she reportedly suffered from Alzheimer's disease.
Often gracing the cover of fashion magazines (UK Vogue in 1965, French Vogue in 1972) and shot by Helmut Newton in 1986 for Vanity Fair, Monica Vitti will be remembered for her rich filmography, her talent and style. When it came to clothes, she had a secret, using her attires, not necessarily bought from major designer houses but often found in vintage shops, in a psychological way, to transform herself.
Once she stated about her relationship with clothes: "I consider my outfits and their colours as psychoanalytic photographs. After wearing a lot of grey, black and blue, when I started working for the cinema and the stage I bought my first red coat. I wore it out. I should be credited for styling skirts with camisole tops: many years ago I turned a lot of antique petticoats into modern tops. I have two original Fortuny gowns and a lot of antique dresses: I find them very elegant."
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