MILAN — Italian designer Lorenzo Riva, who briefly helmed the home of Balenciaga within the Nineteen Seventies, died Saturday at age 85 on the San Gerardo hospital in Monza, the city the place he was born and a 45-minute drive exterior Milan.
Riva was greatest recognized for his bridalwear and haute couture creations that received followers amongst celebrities and socialites over time, starting from Penélope Cruz, Jerry Corridor and Emmanuelle Seigner to Whitney Houston and Isabella Rossellini, amongst others.
A pointy and outspoken inventive with a slender body inherited from his mom, an atelier mannequin, he opened his first workshop on Monza’s By way of Vittorio Emanuele II in 1956 at age 18, impressed and inspired by his three sisters and mom.
He unveiled his first couture assortment at Palazzo Pitti in 1972, earlier than transferring to Paris, the place he briefly helmed Balenciaga within the second half of the Nineteen Seventies.
Riva returned to Italy in 1984, opening a brand new everlasting atelier in Monza together with his enterprise companion Luigi Valietti, and made his high fashion debut on the Alta Roma showcase in Rome in 1991.
A pal of marquee Italian artists from the twentieth century together with Enrico Baj, Lucio Fontana and Mimmo Rotella, with whom he collaborated on his couture robes, Riva ventured into ready-to-wear in 1995, staging his first devoted runway present on the Milan catwalk.
Valietti took to his Fb profile to specific his sorrow over Riva’s demise. “Goodbye Lo [Lorenzo], with the identical magnificence that has at all times characterised you, you’ve left us. I’ll by no means have the ability to neglect you. Yours Lu [Luigi],” Valietti wrote in a caption flanking an image of Riva crossing a avenue in Milan.
After scaling his enterprise internationally, staging vacation spot exhibits — together with one in Tokyo in 1998 — in 2012 the designer offered a majority stake in his model to Ittierre, the Italian manufacturing firm, which might expertise monetary struggles in the following couple of years, racking up a complete debt of 88.7 million euros by 2013. Ittierre was ultimately purchased out by Italian funding agency IKF Holding.
In 2018, Riva turned 80 and determined to relaunch his vogue actions, introducing L’Or by Lorenzo Riva, a brand new model unveiled with a present on the on line casino in Campione d’Italia, Italy.
A yr later, the Museo della Seta, or Silk Museum, in Como, Italy, staged a retrospective exhibition on the designer titled “The Maestro is within the Soul. Lorenzo Riva: Fifty Years of Haute Couture” curated by Paolo Aquilini and showcasing sketches, photographs and robes retracing his longstanding profession in vogue. This included collaborations with the film business, because the couturier designed costumes for the 1999 comedy movie by Mario Monicelli “Panni Sporchi,” or “Soiled Linen” in English, and in 2015 for “The Finest Provide,“ or “La migliore offerta” in Italian, a 2013 psychological thriller directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
