FROM ARCHITECTURE TO FASHION

Graduated in architecture at Milan’s Politecnico, and often referred to as Fashion’s Architect, Gianfranco Ferré contributed to the global myth of Made in Italy fashion as well as to the creation of Italian ready-to-wear, and therefore to a less elitist, more democratic concept of fashion.

His creativity starts showing at an early age through his teenhood oil paintings and, later on, through the belts and the jewelry which he designed in his brother’s garage and gifted to his friends.

During the university years, Ferré met Rosy and Adele Biffi, owners of the well-known Milanese Biff boutiques, who  introduced him to buyers, to the most famous journalists, and to the various Anna Piaggis and Camilla Cedernas. Thanks to these connections, that back then could literally move mountains, young Ferré landed his first job in the atelier of Walter Albini, despite having no background in fashion whatsoever.

TRIPS TO INDIA AND BIRTH OF THE MAISON

In the early Seventies, Ferré traveled for the first of many times to India. The discovery of the Far East marks the beginning of his creative adventure. India infuses him with the passion for solar and luminous colors, for the vital energy of yellows, reds and fuxia which Ferré will then express through his paisleys, his recurrent use of hardstones and his experimental take on jacquard.

In 1978 Gianfranco Ferré launched his eponymous maison. The drapings of the sari used by Indian women combined with his architecture studies will set the base for his clothes famously known as “textyle architectures” - dynamic silhouettes sculpted around the body.

In 1982 Ferré also launched his line of men's clothes and accessories.

GIANFRANCO FERRÉ TODAY: VINTAGE, ART AND CULTURE 

Gianfranco Ferré’s creations are sophisticated and at the same time primitive, free from all that’s unnecessary - sculptural clothes born from the union between shape and matter, fashion and architecture. The white shirt stands out among his icon-items, re-drawn and re-interepted millions of times, “symbol of my style, starting point for new interpretations of the codes of elegance.”

The same, unprecedented use of materials can be found in Ferré’s jewelry, which he defined as “immediate expression of an innate desire for beauty”. Crystals, shells, wood, leather, copper, rust… ornaments narrating stories, born from that same research in the fields of architecture and design.

Ferré died in 2007, after having written one of the most important chapters in the history of Italian fashion, after having directed for some years the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, and after having contributed to the birth of Milan’s Domus fashion Academy. His archive, managed by the Gianfranco Ferré Foundation, serves cultural research worldwide. Today, his name is still a guarantee of the high standards of Made in Italy.