Designer known for daring wear for women
Mariuccia Mandelli, an Italian fashion designer who electrified the runway with short shorts known as “hot pants,” knitwear whimsically emblazoned with animals, and pantsuits for the modern, yet feminine, working woman, died Dec. 6 at her home in Milan. She was 90.
Her death was reported by Corriere della Sera and other Italian media outlets. The cause was not immediately available.
Mandelli was regarded as royalty in Milan, the fashion capital of Italy, for more than half a century. A one-time elementary school teacher, she launched Krizia, her fashion label, in the mid-1950s, drawing its name from a Platonic dialogue about female vanity.
A decade later, still relatively unknown, she stunned the insular Italian design world by claiming an important fashion prize for a collection presented at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The award identified her as both a significant talent and a maverick: Unlike many of her contemporaries, she had eschewed wild colours in favour of black and white.
Blacks, browns and creams — the shades of Italian coffees, the San Francisco Chronicle once observed — remained prominent in her palette for years. Her independent streak, likewise, lasted. Umberto Eco, the Italian author and philosopher, quoted in W Magazine, observed that Mandelli “invents the taste of her own public.”
She designed clothing for children and for men, and the Krizia line included jewelry, fragrances and champagne.
But she was best known for womenswear that was seen as contemporary and daring, a reflection of the feminist movement that coincided with Mandelli’s rise as a force in design.
“Women at the time expressed the will to change the system,” she once told Corriere, an Italian daily.
Mariuccia Mandelli was born in Bergamo, Italy, on Jan. 31, 1925. Survivors include her husband and business partner, Aldo Pinto.