Italian designer Nino Cerruti dies aged 91

"To have style is to mix culture and art", said Nino Cerruti (here in 1985 in Nice).

AFP - RALPH GATTI

Text by: RFI Follow

4 mins

According to the

website , the famous Italian designer Nino Cerruti died on Saturday January 15 in a hospital in Vercelli, in Piedmont (north-west) where he was for a hip operation.

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He was nicknamed the “clothing philosopher”.

“ 

 ,” said Nino Cerruti.

“ 

 ,” confided the Italian couturier.

Slender, he wanted to be the first to try his own creations, many of which were kept in the workshop of the weaving factory founded in 1881 by his grandfather in Biella, in northern Italy.

Born September 25, 1930 in Biella, Nino Cerruti was forced to abandon his philosophy studies at the age of 20, after the death of his father Silvio, to take over the family textile factory and thus bury his dream. to become a journalist.

The stylist will have been the most French of Italian fashion designers when he opened his first boutique in 1967 in Paris, Place de la Madeleine, the starting point of a luxury brand that became global in a short time.

"Casual chic"

In the midst of a student protest in 1968, this heir to the textile industry brought his own revolution to the catwalks by parading men and women in the same clothes.

In the mid-1970s, he created his first women's collections, which 20 years later would represent 20% of the group's turnover.

Gradually, he widened his territory, launching into perfumes, watches, shoes and even jewellery.

In the 1960s, he met a certain Giorgio Armani, four years his junior, and hired him as a designer for men.

The duo, which had a profound impact on the fashion world, separated a decade later, after Armani's decision to found his own house in 1975.

Then, in the 1970s, Nino Cerruti invented the first deconstructed jacket, a discovery that introduced “casual chic” into high-end menswear.

He is a master of casual sophistication, but believes that the term "elegance" has "a terrible taste of the old", preferring the concept of "style".

" 

 ", he said.

Abundant hair, aquiline nose, small smirk, this patriarch of Italian fashion never separates from his favorite yellow sweater that he wears at each of his fashion shows.

He "Signor Nino", as he is affectionately called by his employees, dresses cinema celebrities, Richard Gere, Marcello Mastroianni, Robert Redford or even Jean-Paul Belmondo and makes brief appearances in Hollywood films such as

(1996) or

(1998).

"A Giant Going Away"

But in a context of fierce competition between the major luxury groups, which left little room for independent fashion houses, the designer sold his “Cerruti 1881” brand in 2001 to Italian investors who went bankrupt four years later.

The Cerruti brand was then sold to the American investment fund MatlinPatterson, before ending up in Chinese hands in 2011, with its sale to the Trinity group.

Nino Cerruti had returned to square one after the sale of his group, in the family home in Biella, at the foot of the Alps, to devote himself to wool spinning, which was the springboard for the worldwide success of his brand.

Among his many activities, Nino Cerruti, named Chevalier du travail, was also the official designer of the Ferrari Formula 1 team. 

" 

 ," reacted the Deputy Minister of Economic Development Gilberto Pichetto.

" 

 ", said Carla Capasa, president of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.

“ 

 ”, added Mr. Capasa, defining Nino Cerruti as “ 

 ”.

(

AFP)

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