I mentioned Italian designer Fausto Sarli in a previous post in connection with the costumes for Michelangelo Antonioni’s Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair, 1950). Sarli died today in Rome, so it’s worth dedicating today’s second post to his obituary.
The story of how Sarli - born in Naples in 1927 - became a fashion designer is actually quite funny. His family had envisaged for him a career in the navy, yet even before becoming a teenager young Fausto discovered a very different passion also thanks to an elderly puppeteer who moved near to his family's house.
Fascinated by the puppets, Fausto first started going to all the shows, then turned up at the rehearsals, trying to learn the art of puppetry and also giving a hand with the show preparations.
The puppeteer owned over 200 wood and papier-mâché puppets, most of them in rather bad conditions especially when it came to the costumes, so young Fausto made a deal with the puppeteer: every ten costumes amended he would get a free puppet.
Since as a child he loved making dresses for his mother’s dolls, in a few weeks’ time, he got his own little theatre and started writing plays and organising shows in his house that were usually attended only by one person, a young girl named Jolanda.
One day Jolanda asked him to make her a dress to go to mass and Fausto accepted the challenge. He got his mother’s cotton curtains, cut them and fashioned out of them a dress finishing it overnight without even taking Jolanda’s measures.
The girl wore the dress to mass getting many praises but also arousing the curiosity of all the other girls and of their mothers as well.
Eventually Jolanda – who later on became Fausto’s wife – told the truth about her dress.
Both Fausto and her first "customer" were punished by their mothers, though Fausto had the worst since his mother was a dressmaker and she was scorned by her own clients as her own son seemed to be more talented than her.
Sarli first started working as a fashion illustrator and, after winning an award in 1954, he was allowed to debut in 1956 with a haute couture collection that included thirty dresses at Palazzo Pitti’s Sala Bianca in Florence.
In 1958 he opened his own atelier in Naples: based in a palazzo in Via Filangieri, the atelier included a runway surrounded by gold satin sofas and green satin armchairs, lit by a chandelier hanging from a ceiling decorated with frescoes by an anonymous 1700s Neapolitan painter.
From then on Sarli started creating dresses for celebrities, actresses and wealthy ladies and soon opened his first atelier in Rome’s Via Veneto.
Famous for wearing a sort of "uniform" to work – that is black velvet trousers matched with colourful shirts – Sarli often created his collections while travelling between Naples and Rome, taking inspiration from the landscapes and the colours of his native region.
In 1961 he started working for the Italian State TV, designing costumes for the singer Mina, while continuing to work for the cinema.
Apart from working with costume designer Ferdinando Sarmi on Antonioni’s Cronaca di un amore, he dressed Liz Taylor and, in the 90s, created costumes for Monica Bellucci in Gianfranco Albano's Ostinato destino (1992) and Carol Alt in Sergio Martino's Un orso chiamato Arturo (1992).
The fashion house expanded in the ‘70s, looking for new markets in Asia and, in the 80s, Sarli launched a ready-to-wear line.
While the company struggled to get back to its early fame and successes, Sarli kept on being considered a true master thanks to his impeccable tailoring skills.
At the end of the 90s, the Venice-based Fondazione Giorgio Cini (entitled after Lyda Borelli’s son) asked the designer to restore Eleonora Duse’s wardrobe.
In Naples there is actually the Museo della Moda (Fashion Museum) at the Fondazione Mondragone where you can still see over 50 dresses donated by Sarli to his hometown.
The City of Rome announced today it will offer Sarli the honour of lying in state at the Campidoglio.
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Nice photos.
I love looking at old photos.
Posted by: Benny | December 24, 2010 at 08:14 PM