1890-1973
“Madder and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word genius is most often applied,” said Time of its cover star in 1934, and no wonder. Schiaparelli was born in Rome, but having escaped to Paris she fell in with Dalí and Cocteau. Thanks to them, her designs were uniquely fantastical: a hat that resembled a high-heeled shoe; a plastic collar crawling with metal “bugs”; a handbag that tinkled like a musical box; a dress decorated with lobsters. Not for the “Schiap” the tasteful little suit designed by her rival, Chanel, whom she referred to as “that milliner” – though it was Chanel whose name would live on. Postwar austerity did not suit Schiaparelli, and she shut up shop in 1954 Photograph: John Phillips/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image
1914-1992
The prince of prints was born into one of Florence’s noble families. After a dodgy war – Pucci was the confidant of Edda Mussolini, the dictator’s daughter, and in 1944 helped her to escape to Switzerland – his first designs were for ski-wear (besieged by American manufacturers who’d seen a photograph of him looking sleek on the slopes in Harper’s Bazaar, he decided to market his snug garb himself). Soon though, he branched out into the silk scarves and dresses that would make his name, exquisite kaleidoscopes of colour loved by Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor (Monroe was buried in an apple-green Pucci dress). Pucci’s influence even extended to the moon, for it was the Florentine designer who suggested the three bird motif for the Apollo 15 mission patch in 1971 Photograph: Tom Hill/WireImage/Getty
b1932
With his comb-over and his conker tan, it’s easy to snigger at Valentino Garavani. But in the 60s he was the maestro. Apprenticed under Jacques Fath and Balenciaga, in 1959 he returned to Rome and established his own label, making his international debut in Florence in 1962 with an acclaimed show at the Pitti Palace. Jacqueline Kennedy wore his clothes during the year of mourning after the assassination of her husband. Later Valentino designed her lace wedding dress for her marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Never a revolutionary, he owed his success to an innate sense of what will be thought beautiful tomorrow as well as today – and to knowing how to get the best out of his cutters
Photograph: Mike Marsland/WireImage/Getty
1931-2012
In the land of understated good taste, Anna Piaggi, the stylist and creative consultant of Vogue Italia, stood out like a bowl of ossobuco at a vegetarian feast. Piaggi cared not a jot for minimalist Armani, for taupe cashmere and dinky ballet pumps, preferring riotous colour accessorised with spats, binoculars, ski poles and feather boas. Owner of more than 3,000 dresses, she was determined to look different, perhaps because she’d so disliked her uniform at convent school (“suffering in serge”, as she put it). At a Venetian-themed ball thrown by Karl Lagerfeld, Piaggi arrived – who knows why? – dressed as a fishwife, a basket on her head filled with crabs and seaweed, two dead pigeons about her neck Photograph: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
b1949
Miuccia Prada is the only non-model in the world who can wear a yellow leather beret and not end up looking like Thora Hird – and therein lies the reason for her success. Her style has nothing to do with “timeless elegance” and other cliches; her interest lies in quirkiness, perversity, even in ugliness. A former communist and mime artist, Prada’s career as we know it began in the 80s with a collection of nylon bags – she inherited her grandfather’s leather goods business in 1978 – and is now a vast global empire. Her latest acquisition, however, has more to do with waistlines than hemlines: earlier this month, Prada bought a controlling share in Milan’s famous confectioner, the 190-year-old Pasticerria Marchesi Photograph: David M. Benett/Getty Images
1900-1980
In 1931 or thereabouts, Cipriani, a bartender at the Hotel Europa in Venice, noticed the absence of one of his regulars, a Bostonian called Harry Pickering. When Cipriani asked him why he no longer haunted the Europa, Pickering said he’d been cut off by his family, who disapproved of his drinking. Cipriani promptly loaned him 10,000 lire. Two years later Pickering returned to the Europa, and handed over 50,000 lire “to show his appreciation”. Cipriani used the cash to open Harry’s Bar on Calle Vallaresso. Loved by Hemingway, it was also frequented by Chaplin, Hitchcock, and Capote, Barbara Hutton and, in Brideshead Revisited, by Waugh’s Sebastian Flyte. The home of Cipriani’s inventions, the Bellini and carpaccio, in 2001 it was declared a national landmark by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs. Madly expensive, but so very chic
Photograph: Mondadori/Getty Images
1891-1979
One of the most influential Italian architects and designers of the last century, Gio Ponti was crazily prolific and extremely eclectic. His spectacular 1971 building for the Denver Museum of Art looks like a medieval castle, for all that it’s clad in reflective grey glass tiles, while his classic 1957 dining chair for Cassina, the superleggera, is a piece of furniture so light that a child may pick it up with one hand. He also designed the espresso machine La Cornuta – now an Italian icon – for La Pavoni in 1948. A silver fox with a passion for company, Ponti favoured bow ties and navy blazers, and worked in a Milan studio so vast that his assistants could ride up to their desks on their scooters Photograph: David Lees/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image
1924-1996
In 1960 Federico Fellini released La Dolce Vita, and all the world fell for Italy. The tale of a tabloid journalist caught between the glittery allure of Roman society, the demands of his girlfriend and his desire to become a real writer, it made Marcello Mastroianni a star and a fashion icon. Sunglasses, white shirt, dark suit, narrow tie: men longed to copy him, and women to run their fingers through that fringe. One of only three men to win best actor at Cannes twice, when he died of cancer in 1996, the Trevi fountain in Rome – site of one of the most famous scenes in La Dolce Vita – was draped in black and turned off in his honour. Even now he’s a staple of the best-dressed lists so beloved of men’s glossy magazines: sharp but not overly styled, as they never fail to point out Photograph: RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE
b1937
Even the Shard’s haters have to admit that Renzo Piano has style as well as chutzpah. It may not extend to his wardrobe, but it’s there in his buildings from the Pompidou centre in Paris (co- designed with Richard Rogers), to his extension to the Art Institute of Chicago (complete with “flying carpet”), to the HQ he designed for Hermès in Tokyo (at night it looks like a bamboo lantern). Born into a family of Genoese builders, Piano has a passion for sailing and wants his buildings to “fly”. Contrary to popular myth, the 72-storey Shard is supposed to resemble a steeple rather than a wedge of parmesan, but one so “buoyant” it might have been blown into Southwark on a powerful breeze
Photograph: Alberto Roveri/Getty Images
b1968
Ask a British male for his idea of a stylish Italian, and the reply will come back: Paolo Maldini, who bestrode the stadiums of Europe as left-back for AC Milan and Italy, one of the greatest footballers of his or any other generation. Maldini, however, could just as easily have earned his living on the catwalk. The thoroughbred limbs, the noble cheekbones, the flowing locks, those pale blue eyes – these seemed the blessings of an aesthete rather than an athlete. His shirt was a boring old No 3, but he wore it with grace and nonchalance, retiring at 41, his reputation for consistency and gentlemanly behaviour happily intact Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
