A few years ago a personal research about Giulio Coltellacci's costumes for Elio Petri's The Tenth Victim (1965) led me to a rather sad discovery - most of the suits donned by Marcello Mastroianni in the film and made by Italian tailor Bruno Piattelli were lost. A few pieces have now resurfaced, though, in the archives of the Sartoria Tirelli.
The tailoring house has recently digitalised some of the best pieces and film costumes from its archives and made them available online. All the Piattelli pieces currently at the Tirelli tailoring house were made for Mastroianni for Petri's 10th Victim and Mario Monicelli's Casanova '70, according to the information on the tailoring house site. The suits and coats were donated by Piattelli himself.
Born in 1927 and raised in Rome where he studied law, Piattelli entered the world of fashion when he started helping his father at the family atelier in Piazza San Silvestro and later on in the shop in Via Nazionale. While his brother opened a womenswear boutique in 1959, Bruno launched in 1960 his own venture with a high fashion atelier in Via del Corso 184.
Piattelli won the favour of many selected clients, among them many Italian and international celebrities and actors including John Huston (one of his first clients), Orson Wells, Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Alberto Sordi and Gian Maria Volontè. Piattelli also designed womenswear, so his name is also associated with actresses Virna Lisi, Gina Lollobrigida, and Sylva Koscina.
As the decades passed, while working on his own line Piattelli developed connections with various fashion houses and labels, designing collections for famous ones such as Burberry's and creating in 1998 the tops for the crew of the NASA STS-90 Neurolab mission.
Men's suits, neckties and jackets designed by Piattelli are part of various archives of prestigious institutions such as the Met Museum in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Piattelli is known for introducing several innovations in menswear including the unlined jacket, the double face paletot (one of Piattelli's trademark was employing unusual materials for the lining - see the fur in two of the coats in the Tirelli archive), and the double face necktie that he patented in 1960.
Piattelli designed most of the costumes for Mastroianni, who, as he often stated in interviews, was definitely one of the most elegant men he dressed in his career.
While Mastroianni's glamorous "victim" style in Petri's film is minimally futuristic, the pieces he wears in Casanova '70 (1965) are more traditional and could be considered as classics of the male wardrobe.
In The Tenth Victim Mastroianni is almost a bored and futuristic dandy (as we saw in previous posts on this film), but in Monicelli's comedy he plays the part of a rather comical dandy, Major Andrea Rossi-Colombotti, a NATO officer who can only seduce women when his life is in danger. As a consequence, his love stories and adventures always end up in catastrophes.
The film is actually a great way to analyse a man's wardrobe from the mid-'60s: when we first meet Andrea he is wearing a dark brown three piece suit; a beige suit follows when he goes to visit a psychiatrist.
Beige, cream and dove grey characterise the scenes with innocent and sweet Gigliola (Virna Lisi), hinting at her purity and chaste intentions.
A sensual shade of grey returns for Andrea's visit to the pedicure reputed to bring ill fortune to her men, an encounter followed by an architecturally comic escape on the conical roofs of a trullo.
There is a nod to spy films when Andrea wears a pinstriped three-piece suit to visit (on a gondola, like Casanova) and seduce beautiful and exotic Thelma (Marisa Mell), the sensual wife of a deaf count.
Andrea opts for a beige Nehru jacket (a classic Piattelli piece from those years) with a high armhole designed to allow him to move freely, for a bizarre weekend he spends at Thelma and her husband's mansion.
Black comes back towards the end when Andrea is accused of killing the count and is taken to court, the colour of his suit perfectly matching the shade of the dress and striking headgear donned by the now widowed Thelma, a witness at the trial.
In this film Mastroianni always wears a handkerchief in the pocket of his jacket, and at times accessorises his suits with a hat and gloves, signs that distinguish him as a genuine gentleman and an elegantly irresistible Casanova, though this image projected by his style is usually shattered by the epically tragicomic conclusions of his risky adventures, since the film is a sort of comical update on the Casanova legend.
The comedy reconfirmed Mastroianni was a talented actor, but also an icon of style. Mastroianni's wardrobe in this movie, and in particular his jackets featuring thin lapels and narrow shoulders, were often compared by fashion experts to the styles favoured by Sean Connery in Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger (1964).
While the Piattelli pieces in the Tirelli archives could be considered as lost menswear gems, there is a lot more on the tailoring house site to discover, with garments and accessories that film and fashion fans will love and that will hopefully inspire many costume design students.
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