Emilio Pucci

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Vanessa Friedman

Alessandra Arezzi Boza Contributing Author

Armando Chitolina Editor

TASCHEN, Cologne, 2013, Chinese, English, French, and German

Nonfiction, Fashion Design

ISBN: 9783836536202

Suggested Retail Price: $69.99

From the Publisher. Emilio Pucci (1914-1992) had a passion for women, a visionary sense of style, and an eye for color and design. With these talents he created a fashion house unlike any other. By the early ’50s his boutique on the isle of Capri was catering to wealthy sophisticates, heiresses and movie stars buying his "Capri pants", silk scarves and lightweight separates. By the end of the decade, Jacqueline Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were wearing his dresses, and by the mid-60s the label was synonymous with the gilded lifestyle of an international jetset. Today, the house remains as vibrant as ever – Victoria Beckham, Elizabeth Hurley, and Kylie Minogue are adherent

The Pucci story is a modern epic with its roots in renaissance Italy: the brand’s founder, the Marchese Emilio Pucci di Barsento, was a charismatic aristocrat whose lineage extends back to the 14th century. It is a story of evolution: how a family company grew from one tiny store to an international brand with 50 boutiques worldwide (and a presence in 300 more). And finally, it is a tale of innovation: Pucci was one of the first brands to bear a logo, and a pioneer of diversification into interiors, athletic wear and accessories. It introduced free-moving, lightweight fabrics, pop art prints, and a new color palette into womenswear, and constantly pushed fabric and printing technologie

Featuring hundreds of photographs, drawings, and candid shots from the archive of the Emilio Pucci Foundation, this tome, first published as a limited edition (2010) and now available as an unlimited popular edition, captures the breathtaking elegance and drama of a unique brand. Vanessa Friedman’s text places Emilio’s achievements in the context of fashion history, and provides insight into the remarkable Pucci dynasty.

A Designers & Books Notable Design Book of 2013

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Norman Weinstein

On Norman Weinstein’s Notable Books of 2013 list

Italian fashion designer Emilio Pucci always resisted the title of “artist” and accepted solely the title of “dressmaker.” This lovingly compiled and monumentally scaled catalogue of his signature designs should settle the issue. Pucci was a major artist whose creativity consistently transcended the ready-to-wear sportswear lines that made his name internationally acclaimed.

The authors compile a thorough listing of Pucci’s influences: the art and architecture of his beloved city of Florence, his lifelong romance with tropical colors patterned in exuberantly rhythmic prints inspired by his travels in Africa and Indonesia, and his love of cinema. And fitting for a 20th-century Renaissance man was Pucci’s adoration of the painters of Italy’s first renaissance, Fra Angelico and Botticelli, mingled with his highly selective borrowing of ecstatically kinetic color motifs from the psychedelic ‘60s and the Pop art ‘80s.

Yet missing from this otherwise flawless narrative carefully woven by Friedman and Boza is the obvious impact of Italian carnivals, ancient and modern, on Pucci’s designs. The swirling electrifying colors that dance seemingly beyond the seams of silk dresses and scarves, the riotously sensual geometric forms that herald feminine curvaceousness, the spirit of athletic grace his Technicolor leggings proclaimed—these were carnivalesque artifacts in motion. The hundreds of color illustrations that fill this reasonably priced reprint of the original high-priced limited edition comprise the book’s essential core. A more joyous experience for lovers of the colors of carnival realized in fashion could not be imagined.

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