Sometimes shocking, often game-changing, always visionary, certain
designers become
the name on everyone’s lips for a millisecond. Then they’re gone, no longer
part of
contemporary conversation, and barely even a footnote in the fashion
history tomes that
threaten the slender legs of the chicest coffee tables. If we stumble upon
their names,
we sit back and wonder, How can we not be talking about them
anymore?
In this series, Fashion’s Unsung Designers, I will spotlight some of those
who I believe
deserve, not only to be remembered, but perhaps name-dropped over cocktails.
Before Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace became the monolithic
cornerstones of late twentieth-century Italian fashion, there was another
figure: Walter Albini. Likened to Yves Saint Laurent by WWD, he pioneered
the event that became known as Milan Fashion Week, by breaking with the
tradition of showcasing fashion in Florence’s historic Palazzo Pitti and
showing in Milan. A revolutionary move which the other houses soon copied
and Milan, of course, remains the host of fashion week to this day. Albini
is all but unknown internationally and surprisingly forgotten in Italy, yet
his influence runs through every palazzo of Italian fashion. Compare his
work (below left) with Armani (below right).
A gifted illustrator, Albini graduated from the Institute of Art, Design
and Fashion in Turin and, at 17, headed to Paris where he illustrated
fashion for newspapers and magazines. There he met an elderly Coco Chanel
who left an enduring impression on the budding designer, as well as a young
Karl Lagerfeld. But it was an encounter with the late Mariuccia Mandelli of
Krizia that changed his course when she persuaded him to return to Italy
and work for her.
A decadent dandy figure, a cross between Halston and Cecil Beaton,
Albini understood the power of the total look and devoted as much attention
to the fabric design of a foulard as the drape of an evening gown. His
inspirations were far reaching––from Klimt and Art Deco, to Wallis Simpson
and Marlene Dietrich, from Bauhaus graphics to the drawings of Erté––but
all imbued with a silver screen aura associated with his preferred era,
1920 to 1940.
One reason why he isn’t so celebrated at home might be that he began his
career as an illustrator and perhaps became pigeonholed. But the more
knowledgeable of his peers understood that this was precisely his strength.
His great friend, Anna Piaggi, said, “To get to the garment, Walter started
from a drawing. His drawings were not summary sketches but proper
illustrations, which from time to time suggested the themes of the
collections and were inseparable from the environment that represented
them.”
From these drawings so lovingly detailed and ornately colored, the
garments were conjured. He took it a step further and reintroduced fashion
illustration into advertisements for the first time since illustration’s
heyday in the 20s and 30s. After designing for a raft of labels including
Krizia, Gianni Baldini, and Cadet (where, incidentally, Franco Moschino
also cut his teeth but some years later), Albini arrived at Milan fashion
week for Fall 1972 as the sole designer behind five different houses each
specializing in specific categories from outerwear to knitwear. The labels
he united into one show, something never done before, were Basile,
Escargots, Callaghan, Misterfox and Diamant’s. Impressed, Joan Burnstein of
Brown’s in London, who would later famously champion a young John Galliano,
helped introduce him to the English market via a London fashion show.
Beloved by press but without financial backing, Albini often found
himself hustling despite the international acclaim. Inevitably, the
struggle informed his process. In 1972, unable to find a producer for
outerwear in time for his runway show, he created the unstructured jacket,
known in Italian as la giacca camicia (the blouse jacket). He
wasn’t averse to controversy printing images of the Virgin Mary on shirts
long before Dolce & Gabbana. While his womenswear recalled the dreamy and
seductive glamour of Daisy Buchanan but transplanted from East Egg to a
uniquely Italian location with cypress trees and medieval villas, his
menswear evoked lounge lizards, boaters and flâneurs who sported Oxford
Bags in Prince of Wales check and two-tone brogues. Then, in 1975, he
abruptly reversed these codes and showed his menswear on women, thereby
predicting the concept of unisex dressing by many years. Despite struggling
financially through 1974 and 1975, he launched an haute couture collection,
but found himself back designing for others by the end of the decade.
Despite his lack of widespread acclaim, he is often cited as the
forefather of Italian ready-to-wear. Manolo Blahnik, said “Walter Albini is
still for me today the essence of Italian High Fashion…I will never forget
the show at Caffè Florian in Venice. Wonderful moments. A collection that
made one think of Chanel, in a very Italian way. Gardenias all over the
place, the essence of sophistication. Walter has always been extremely
modern. When I think of Italian fashion, I think of Albini and no one
else.”
The Sunday Times gushed in 1973, “With the exception of Yves Saint
Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, no other designer has had a greater impact in
recent years.” But still, his name has diminished while those have remained
bright. And after he had laid the groundwork for those to come after, and
for the 80s and 90s boom years of the Made in Italy label, he
died, reportedly of AIDS, in 1983.
He was 42.