Germana Marucelli (13 October 1905 - 23 February 1983) was an Italian fashion designer.

Life and career

Born in

Settignano Settignano is a ''frazione'' on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy. The little '' borgo'' of Settignano carries a familiar name for having produced three sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, Desiderio da Settignano and the Gamberini brother ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

into a family of craftsmen, after the primary school at 11 years old Marucelli started working as an apprentice in her uncle's atelier, Chiostri. In 1925 she left Chiostri to work in another Florentine atelier, and in 1932 she was appointed director of Gastaldi tailoring in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

. In 1938 Marucelli moved to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, where in via Borgospesso she opened her first atelier. During the war she was forced to abandon the atelier and to move in

Stresa Stresa is a town and ''comune'' of about 4,600 residents on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, about northwest of Milan. It is situated on road and rail routes to the Simp ...

, guest of her friend and loyal customer Flora d’Elys. During the war years she conceived a new type of fashion, characterized by hourglass silhouettes, thus anticipating the New Look by Christian Dior. After the war, she came back to Milan and created the "Giovedì di Germana Marucelli" (i.e. "Thursdays by Germana Marucelli"), a series of Thursday cultural meetings which involved authors and artists. In 1948 Marucelli collaborated with the painter and set designer Piero Zuffi for a collection inspired by surrealism, and the same year she was appointed production and advertising consultant of the textile company

SNIA Viscosa SNIA S.p.A. was an Italian firm located in Milan that manufactured defence products, textiles, chemicals, perfumes, and corrugated paper among other products. History The ''Società di Navigazione Italo-Americana'' (SNIA) was founded as a shippi ...

. Thanks to this position she was then able to take over the Ventura atelier in Corso Venezia, where she opened her new atelier and workshop. In 1950, she founded and financed a poetry prize, the Premio San Babila. In 1952, together with other designers such as

Vincenzo Ferdinandi Vincenzo Ferdinandi (29 November 1920 - 22 April 1990) was an Italian designer among the founders of Italian haute couture. Biography Born in the United States, he moved to Italy in the early 1950s to open an atelier in Rome in the fashionabl ...

Roberto Capucci Roberto Capucci (born December 2, 1930 in Rome) is an Italian fashion designer. Biography Capucci attended art school at Accademia di Belle Arti, where he studied with the artists Mazzacurati, Avenali, and Libero De Libero. In 1950, he opened ...

the Sartoria Antonelli, the Atelier Carosa, Giovannelli-Sciarra, Polinober, the Sartoria Vanna, Jole Veneziani and sixteen sportswear companies and boutiques at the first historic show at the Sala Bianca of

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

. A very young

Oriana Fallaci Oriana Fallaci (; 29 June 1929 – 15 September 2006) was an Italian journalist and author. A partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution ...

, sent by the weekly Epoca, told the news. Between 1950s and 1960s Marucelli established herself as one of the most important Italian fashion designers, with a style often inspired by classical and avant-garde figurative arts, such as the 1954 collection "fraticello" (i.e. "little friar"), inspired by the fifteenth century Tuscan painters, or the 1960 line "vescovi" (i.e. "bishops"), inspired by the sculptures of

Giacomo Manzù Giacomo Manzù, pseudonym of Giacomo Manzoni (22 December 1908 – 17 January 1991), was an Italian sculptor. Biography Manzù was born in Bergamo. His father was a shoemaker. Other than a few evening art classes, he was self-taught in s ...

. Other successful collections include the 1957 youthful line "Pannocchia", the 1963 transgressive line "Scollo a tuffo", and the 1965 line "Optical", she designed together with the kinetic artist

Getulio Alviani Getulio Alviani (5 September 1939 in Udine – 24 February 2018 in Milan) was an Italian painter based in Milan. He is considered to be an important International Optical - kinetic artist. Life and work Alviani was born in Udine, where he show ...

. In 1972 Marucelli made her last collection, then she semi-retired, continuing to dress only a limited circle of loyal customers, and opening a sewing school, restricted to her grandchildren and a few friends.

References

1905 births 1983 deaths People from the Province of Florence Italian fashion designers Fashion designers from Florence Italian women fashion designers Fashion designers from Milan {{italy-bio-stub