He died in a hospital in Vercelli, in Piedmont (north-west of Italy) where he was for a hip operation, according to the website of the daily Corriere della Sera.
"It's a giant among Italian entrepreneurs who is leaving," reacted the Deputy Minister of Economic Development Gilberto Pichetto.
"A great innovator, a creative visionary and precursor of many today's realities", said Carla Capasa, president of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.
"He leaves a great legacy: the courage to invest and believe in young people. He was the one who believed in a very young Giorgio Armani of which he was the master", added Mr. Capasa, defining Nino Cerruti as " the smartest man in Italy".
Nino Cerruti introduced "casual chic" to high-end menswear by inventing the first deconstructed jacket in the 1970s.
He was then a past master in relaxed refinement.
Born September 25, 1930 in Biella, he 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 of become a journalist.
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 decided to found his own house in 1975.
His line of sportswear was very successful in the 1980s and he sponsored top athletes of the time, such as American tennis player Jimmy Connors and Swedish skier Ingemar Stenmark.
But athletes are not the only ones to wear his clothes: the famous French actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Italian Marcello Mastroianni will also wear his costumes.
Among his many activities, Nino Cerruti, named Knight of Labor in 2000, was also the official designer of the Ferrari Formula 1 team in 1994.
In 2001, he sold his "Cerruti 1881" brand to Italian investors, then sold to an American investment fund and then to the Chinese group Trinity.
© 2022 AFP