Anna Piaggi: a myth of Italian fashion

There are figures destined to enter the myth of the fashion system thanks to their charisma and a personality capable of interpreting and anticipating fashions: Anna Piaggi is one of them. Born in Milan back in 1931, a skilful journalist and indomitable collector, she has been a muse (above all for Karl Lagerfeld and Manolo Blahnik), trendsetter and writer, but to define her with just one of these roles would be reductive.

Perhaps the appellation that best suits her is that of icon. From the 1960s to the 2000s, she has ridden decades of costume history with tireless passion, rewriting the rules of trends with her colourful, theatrical, over-the-top and absolutely unique looks.

Among her distinguishing features, it is impossible not to mention her trademark lock of blue hair, her garishly made-up cheeks and her heart-shaped mouth. His passion for hats remains memorable: a collection, his, to make the ladies of Ascot envious. Her artistic and sentimental association with the photoreporter Alfa Castaldi immediately led her to frequent the great protagonists of the Italian cultural scene, and it was she who encouraged her husband to embark on a career as a photographer for the most important fashion magazines of the time, including, of course, Vogue.

By a strange twist of fate, it was she who would eventually tie her own destiny to the magazine edited by Franca Sozzani by signing an unmissable illustrated column carried on from 1988 until her death: Anna Piaggi’s D.P. Doppie Pagine. Her words are verbage for all fashion lovers and for those who, in that voracious and chaotic industry, work and invent looks, stories, costumes. Those who think that Piaggi’s style can only be attributed to the big names in the fashion business are very wrong: a forerunner of vintage, Anna was a skilful connoisseur of the most hidden and precious addresses in the European capitals among flea markets, theatre warehouses and second-hand boutiques.

It was here that she loved to fish out and select her beloved vintage jackets, costumes and original hats to which she matched the big names on the international scene (among them Galliano, Fendi, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana), often anticipating their success on the market. In 2006, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London even dedicated an exhibition to her that consecrated her as a myth: a selection of her most iconic wardrobes, her collection of more than 800 headgears, her inspirational moodboards and Lagerfeld’s watercolours that portrayed her during their fashion symposiums between Paris and Monte Carlo.

Make-up has also always played an important role in her outfits: in time, she adopted Queen Elizabeth I‘s stratagem by colouring her face white and highlighting her orange cheekbones and fiery red mouth in order to stylise her appearance and make it ageless and timeless. Anna Piaggi remains a unique figure in the context of fashion and reminds us that life is art and, as on a big stage, it is important to perform each show to the best of one’s ability.

Ph: Captain Catan from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, CC BY 3.0, da Wikimedia Commons