Neon Fiorucci
“Fioruccine” by Beatrice Brandini
The beautiful exhibition Elio Fiorucci, curated by Judith Clark with an installation design by Fabio Cherstich, opens today at the Triennale (until March 16, 2025).
A glimpse of the Elio Fiorucci exhibition. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani – DSL Studio © Triennale Milano
I had already talked about Fiorucci in a post of mine from 9 years ago, exactly in 2015, (the link in the description https://www.beatricebrandini.it/fiorucci-the-first-idea-of-lifestyle-the-first-concept-store-the-first-crossover-between-art-and-fashion-and-it-was-1967/?lang=en), because I have always been crazy about him, so much so that more than once I left Florence for Milan, very young, exclusively to see (and buy), the Fiorucci store in Piazza S. Babila.
A glimpse of the Elio Fiorucci exhibition. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani – DSL Studio © Triennale Milano
Yesterday I was supposed to be at the press conference, but a national train strike left me in Bologna, with a great regret that I will try to fill soon by returning as a visitor.
Illustration for Panini stickers. Courtesy Fiorucci
The exhibition presents the human, entrepreneurial and cultural events of Elio Fiorucci, essentially telling the story of a unique personality who has shaken up fashion and marketing, not only in Italy. Elio Fiorucci’s was in fact a modern vision, different from everything that was raging in Italy at that time and in a certain sense in the world, creating a “tribe” that mixed fashion, art, design, visual arts and advertising.
A glimpse of the Elio Fiorucci exhibition. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani – DSL Studio © Triennale Milano
The exhibition focuses mainly on the life of the designer, with a large space dedicated to his belongings, objects from his personal archive, but also industrial objects and products, with one single common thread, Fiorucci’s revolutionary aesthetic.
A glimpse of the Elio Fiorucci exhibition. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani – DSL Studio © Triennale Milano
Born in Milan in 1935, Elio Fiorucci stood out at a very young age for the creation of colored plastic galoshes. But it was a trip to London in 1965 that was the real turning point, or starting point, for his project. Back in Milan, he opened his first store dedicated to young fashion, with revolutionary pluses ranging from affordable costs to a variety of offerings, a taste for provocation and transgression, and the ability to surround himself with young talents. In 1976 he opens his first store in New York, designed by an extraordinary Ettore Sottsass. It was in this place that, in the same year, Andy Warhol chose to launch his magazine Interview. In the 1980s, the first license with Disney was born, then it was the turn of Love Therapy (the brand had already been sold to the multinational Edwin International in 1990), and then he designed the Baby Angel line with the OVS group.
Elio Fiorucci, 1978 Courtesy of Love Therapy Archive
I am happy that the Triennale is dedicating such an important exhibition to Elio Fiorucci, a way to pay due homage to this great personality, who with the wealth of his ideas and projects, “subverted” fashion and customs, but above all its rules, influencing many creative personalities who certainly looked to him as an example.
Heart of Fiorucci
Good life to everyone!
Beatrice