"SIMONETTA ENTERED MY consciousness in 1976 at St Martin's School of Art, when I marveled over her portrait in the book In Vogue by Bridgid Keenan, the first fashion tome that I bought," wrote fashion designer Stephen Jones, who in 2004 dedicated his collection of hats to Simonetta, the legendary Italian couturier. "I was fascinated by this image; she and her Vogue world seemed so urbane, exotic and glamorous - the opposite from the current punk sensibility, but even then, I had the notion that her aristocratic arched eyebrow was not so removed from Johnny Rotten's punk sneer." This year, Marsilio Editori in conjunction with an exhibition by Fondazione Pitti remembers Simonetta in the new book, Simonetta. La prima donna della moda italiana.
"What stood out about Simonetta's designs is that she didn't follow fashion as much as her own vision," says Bonnie Wyper, Simonetta's assistant in Paris. "She knew what she wanted and she never hesitated to tell you what she thought."
Born in Rome in 1922, Simonetta Colonna di Ceasero's father was part of the noble Colonna family, while her mother, Barbara Antonelli, descended from Russian aristocracy. In 1942, the young Simonetta defied her country's facist regime and attended a party hosted by Contessa Giulinella Senni and Merrit Cootes, a diplomat who was awaiting expulsion from Italy. Simonetta was sentenced to fifteen days in a women's prison for attending the party. She joined her mother and sister a few months later in Sorrento, where she began making clothes for the two daughters of Benedetto Croce. On a journey back to Rome, a suitcase containing her mother's precious jewelry went missing. Simonetta vowed to take back her aristocratic life, and she chose couture as her means to regain it. "It is no coincidence that her arrival in her atelier, when she was already an established coutrier would be heralded by the tinkling of bracelets and pendants that were an almost integral part of her forearm: the left sleeve of the clothes she wore would always be much shorter than the right," writes Vittoria Caterina Caratozzola in her essay in the book.
Simonetta was arrested again for supporting the resistance, along with her fianc‚, Galezzano Visconti di Mondrone, who she married in 1944. They were released just before the liberation.
In 1946, she opened her first fashion house label under the name Simonetta Visconti. The first collection was improvised from scrap materials due to the lack of supplies during the nation's reconstruction. Journalist Irene Brin called it "Tricks of ingenious poverty." Once the press began to take interest in her, including British Vogue in 1948, and American Vogue in 1949, her private life crumbled and she was divorced later that year.
By 1949, Simonetta's atlier on Via Gregoriana bustled with tourists, particularly Americans. Bergdorf Goodman and Marshall Fields were attracted to the "wearability of the designs." "You could wear her clothes now because the look is absolutely classic," Wyper says. In 1951, the first Italian fashion show was organized in Florence, and in November, Bergdorf launched the first American collection of Simonetta. As she began to draw more on the splendor of Italy, she was featured in countless articles in the United States. "The Glamorous Countess," as she was dubbed by Harper's Bazaar, was born.
In the early '50s Simonetta met her second husband, fashion designer Alberto Fabiani, whom she married in 1952. In the second half of the decade, Simonetta loosened her silhouettes, incorporating empire waists and tubular shapes. That same year the pair showed their collections at London's Marks & Spencer.
From this show, Simonetta launched a boutique collection of separates, a forerunner to pret-a-porter, consisting of sporty beach and aprŠs-ski pieces. She also increased her use of simpler more geometric shapes and became interested in the collar cape, two-piece suits, and princess dresses. In a conversation with American buyers who complained that her capes did not allow for full movement, she famously retorted that a woman does not look elegant when she is totally comfortable.
In 1962, Simonetta and Fabiani made their joint debut in Paris. Elsa Schiaparelli, Helena Rubinstein, Lee Radziwill, and Leonor Fini turned up at Dauphin, their atelier next to Balmain and a stone's throw from Dior and Guy Laroche. The show was a success, but "she received the cold shoulder from the French," Wyper recalls. "None of the vendors would come with their fabrics or belts." The duo battled for a place on the Parisian fashion scene, but by 1964, Fabiani was ready to call it quits and moved back to Rome. Simonetta stayed in Paris, and the two divorced in 1973.
As couture demands changed and fashion became influenced by Carnaby Street, Simonetta became disenchanted with it. Instead of influencing the streets, suddenly the streets influenced fashion. By the 1970s, she gravitated toward Eastern philosophies and joined an Ashram. Wyper says, "For her, there is not the same beauty in the way people dress, or even the way they speak." Today, Simonetta lives a quieter life, her sartorial elegance lives on in the minds of contemporary designers like Stephen Jones, who looks for the present of fashion by winking at the past.