Born: Roberto Capucci on December 2nd 1929 in Rome, Italy. He was a descendant of a wealthy Roman family. Capucci attended the Liceo artistico and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and was undecided about becoming an architect or a film director. He started working as a young boy and opened his first atelier when he was younger than 20. Which is where he received his nickname of the "boy wonder." Roberto Capucci was greatly influenced by futurism, rationalism and its focus on shape, and pop art. He distanced himself extremely from ready-to-wear garments because he believed its logic of mass production was not in his style and necessity for his creative needs. Capucci payed a lot of attention to the details of garments and sometimes prepared more than a thousand sketches, all in black and white so that the color would not be a direct influence to the design. he was also greatly influenced by his experience in costume design and believed it was a fundamental influence in his later artistic development. He opened his first atelier in 1950and was the first Italian to receive the "Fashion Oscar" in 1958. In 1956 was said to be the best Italian fashion designer by the international press. And was the first Italian designer to be asked to launch a perfume in France. Greatly associated with Haute Couture and experimentation with structure, Roberto Capucci thought of himself as an artist, and disliked the thought of being called a designer to what once he said "I don't consider myself a tailor or a designer but an artisan looking for ways of creating, looking for ways to express a fabric to use it as a sculptor uses clay". The reasons this "artist" is iconic in fashion history is because of the way his creations portray intrinsic beauty and uniqueness. He gained a reputation of a master of silhouette and color, followed and blended the abstract shapes of geometry with the shapes inspired by pure nature and approached his work as an artist pleating and manipulating fabric into sculptural forms. He was known for being a sculptor of silk and a contrast in fashion. Capucci believed in "Geometry, form, naturalism, and botany" and was opposed to allowing any kind of "supermodel" to wear his garments. He believed they obscured the garments as well as any other aspects of contemporary fashion. Instead, he allowed opera singers, princesses,wives of presidents and debutantes from Roman aristocracy also called "capuccine" to wear his creations for the public.
He believed a sculptural and architectural body inhabits objects that blur the boundaries between art and fashion. And even though some of his garments were worn, most of them rarely seemed to have dressing as their main goal and were not intended to be worn, but instead shown.Capucci was also the first to use the "optical technique" and was an outsider to fashion business. Most of his designs promoted the 50's and 60's flare which was extremely popular at that time. And his greatest influence to fashion history is his collection of angular clothing and his artistic creations. His designs were influenced mostly by architecture and 20th century artistic movements, but also had his influence from past designers like Giovanni Batista Giorgini of whom he worked for when he first presented his designs in Florence,1951 and whom he was greatly supported by. Before opening his atelier, he designed dresses for Giorginni's wife and daughter to model during one of his shows, and all buyers went wild with the talent in the young boy.
The "box look"by the end of the 1950's is one of many lasting signature silhouettes created by this designer.In the 1980's he decided to break free of the regular runway and decided to show his work only once a year, often showing in museums and always in a different city from which he created his inspiration for that particular showing. He was thought of as the "Michelangelo of cloth" and in 2003 influenced designers such as Bernard Wilhem, Sybilla, and Tara Subkoff to make a ready to wear line with his name, these designers now have access to an archive of nearly 30,000 designs all by Capucci and these designers use those in the making of the garments as an influence.The signature "box look" silhouette created by Capucci is still highly remembered in fashion and left for the fashion world his impeccable reputation of beauty, uniqueness and mastery of silhouette and color. His creations are still greatly recognized and are shown in leading museums worldwide. Gillion, Valerie. “Italian fashion.” Berg fashion library. Berg publishers 2010. 24 August 2011 <http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00323.xml?q=roberto%20capucci&isfuzzy=no#highlightAnchor >
Price, Holly, and Anne Stegmeyer Who's who in fashion fifth edition New York, NY: Fairchild books, 2010
Reinach, Simona Segre “Capucci, Roberto” Gale power search. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. 24 August 2011<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=GPS&userGroupName=fashionidm&tabID=T001&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=1&contentSet=GALE|CX3427500111&&docId=GALE|CX3427500111&docType=GALE&role>
Updike, David. “Roberto Capucci” Ebsco Host . 24 August 2011 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=11&sid=13ea42f4-8f7a-4aa4-9a3d-2f8ad05367e3%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=60036963>
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