Tuesday 30 November 2021
Josephine Baker: the world's first Black superstar enters France's Pantheon
Josephine Baker joins French Pantheon of the
great
Issued on:
30/11/2021 - 08:46
Modified:
30/11/2021 - 08:44
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211130-josephine-baker-joins-french-pantheon-of-the-great
Baker's adopted country is honouring her 46 years
after her death
Paris (AFP)
– French-American dancer, singer, actress and rights activist Josephine Baker
will become the first black woman to enter France's Pantheon mausoleum of
revered historical figures on Tuesday, nearly half a century after her death.
Baker will
be just the sixth woman to be honoured in the secular temple to the "great
men" of the French Republic, which sits on a hill in Paris's Left Bank.
She will
also be the first entertainer to be immortalised alongside the likes of Victor
Hugo, Emile Zola and Marie Curie.
The
"pantheonisation" of the world's first black female superstar caps
years of campaigning by Baker's family and admirers to give her the rare
posthumous honour.
President
Emmanuel Macron granted the request in August to recognise the fact that
Baker's "whole life was dedicated to the twin quest for liberty and
justice," his office said last week.
Baker is
buried in Monaco, where her body will remain.
During
Tuesday's ceremony a coffin containing handfuls of earth from four places where
she lived -- the US city of St. Louis where she was born; Paris; the Chateau de
Milandes where she lived in southwest France; and Monaco -- will be placed in
the tomb reserved for her in the Pantheon's crypt.
The coffin
will be carried into the building by members of the French air force,
commemorating her role in the French Resistance during World War II.
- Born into
poverty -
Macron will
deliver a speech and some of Baker's relatives will read short texts written by
the trailblazing performer.
Baker's
name will also soon be added to the name of the Gaite metro station next to the
Bobino theatre in southern Paris, where she last appeared on stage a few days
before her death in 1975.
Born Freda
Josephine McDonald into extreme poverty in Missouri in 1906, Baker left school
at 13.
After two
failed marriages -- she took the name Baker from her second husband -- she
managed to land herself a place in one of the first all-black musicals on
Broadway in 1921.
Like many
black American artists at the time, she moved to France to escape racial
segregation back home.
One of the
defining moments of her career came when she danced the Charleston at the
Folies Bergere cabaret hall wearing only a string of pearls and a skirt made of
rubber bananas, in a sensational send-up of colonial fantasies about black
women.
'France
made me'
The
performance marked the start of a long love affair between France and the
free-spirited style icon, who took French nationality in 1937.
At the
outbreak of World War II, she joined the Resistance against Nazi Germany,
becoming a lieutenant in the French air force's female auxiliary corps.
She also
became a spy for France's wartime leader-in-exile General Charles de Gaulle,
obtaining information on Italian leader Benito Mussolini and sending reports to
London hidden in her music sheets in invisible ink.
"France
made me who I am," she said later. "Parisians gave me everything... I
am prepared to give them my life."
She also
waged a fight against discrimination, adopting 12 children from different
ethnic backgrounds to form a "rainbow" family at her chateau in the
Dordogne region.
She died on
April 12, 1975, aged 68, from a brain haemorrhage, days after a final smash-hit
cabaret show in Paris celebrating her half-century on the stage.
She is the
second woman to be entered by Macron into the Pantheon, after former minister
Simone Veil, who survived the Holocaust to fight for abortion rights and
European unity.
In a sign
of the universal affection in which Baker is still held in France, there was no
public criticism of the decision to honour her, including from far-right
commentators that are generally scathing of anti-racism gestures.
Sunday 28 November 2021
The Pop Society / The Eton Society
ABOUT ETON, SEE ALSO:
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/08/about-eton-by-adam-nicolson-eric.html
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-modern-eton-college.html
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-clique-of-pseudo-adults-britains.html
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/07/abolish-eton-labour-groups-aim-to-strip.html
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2017/03/sunday-images-thirty-years-on-private.html
https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-old-boys-decline-and-rise-of-public.html
The History of Pop Society
https://www.newandlingwood.com/the-editorial/post/eton-pop-waistcoats
Photo by
Rhubarb & Custard
Pop, more
properly known as The Eton society and reserved for elite prefects, has been
known to include the most charming and popular students, with such members as
Prince William, Boris Johnson and Eddie Redmayne in their ranks.
Founded in
1811 as a debating society, Pop originally went by the name “Popina”, from the
Latin “Cook Shop” which is where the boys used to meet. In its prime, it was
the ultimate networking tool and could open the most incredible doors. Over the
years its power and privileges have grown.
Historically,
Pop was predominantly filled with athletes rather than intellectuals, their
justification being that you had to stand out through your leadership
qualities.
The rules
were altered in 1987 and again in 2005 so that the new intake are not elected
solely by the existing year and a committee of masters. Members of Pop are
entitled to wear checked spongebag trousers and a waistcoat of their own
design, which means football shirts, team crests, national flags, fluorescent
colours, Hermes scarves and even sequins are not uncommon. As one former member
of Pop put it "your mother's old evening gown, or a bit of old
curtain"
POP
Historically,
only members of Pop were entitled to furl their umbrellas or sit on the wall on
the Long Walk, in front of the main building. However, this tradition has died
out. They perform roles at many of the routine events of the school year,
including school plays, parents' evenings and other official events. Pop:
officially known as 'Eton Society', a highly glamorous high-status elite
society comprising the most popular, well-regarded, confident and able senior
boys. It is thus truly an elite within an elite. It is a driving ambition of
many capable Eton schoolboys to be elected to Pop, and many high-performers who
are refused entry to this elite consider their careers at Eton a failure. Boris
Johnson was a member of Pop, whilst David Cameron (unlike his elder brother
Alexander) failed to be elected, a fact which possibly fed their later
political rivalry. Over the years its power and privileges have grown. Pop is
the oldest self-electing society at Eton. The rules were altered in 1987 and
again in 2005 so that the new intake are not elected solely by the existing
year and a committee of masters. Members of Pop wear white and black
houndstooth-checked trousers, a starched stick-up collar and white bow-tie, and
are entitled to wear flamboyant waistcoats, often of their own design.
Historically, only members of Pop were entitled to furl their umbrellas or
sit on the wall on the Long Walk, in front of the main building. However, this
tradition has died out. They perform roles at many of the routine events of the
school year, including School Plays, parents' evenings and other official
events, and generally maintain order. Notable ex-members of Pop include Prince
William, Duke of Cambridge (unlike his younger brother Prince Harry, who failed
to be elected); Eddie Redmayne; and Boris Johnson.
A very exclusive club called pop
ETON is the most elite school in Britain – and its
sixth form society is even more selective...
By BILL
COLES
00:00, Thu,
Mar 17, 2011
https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/235077/A-very-exclusive-club-called-pop
Members of Pop are permitted to wear any waistcoat
they please
They are,
without a shadow of a doubt, the world’s gaudiest prefects – and when I was a
callow 17-year-old it was one of my very slight regrets that I was never
elected a member of Eton College’s most prestigious club. The Eton Society – or
Pop as it’s known – this year celebrates its 200th anniversary and though
Prince William and his uncle Earl Spencer will both have been invited to the
£250-a-head party in its honour, I will sadly not be among their number.
As ever, it
seems as if all the rankand- file Etonians have been left out on the street,
peering in through the windows to catch a glimpse of our old prefects making
merry round the fireside. At first glance Pop looks like nothing more than a
very posh sixth form club. But Eton (with fees of £30,000 a year) is still
regarded by many as the top elite school in the country – one that has provided
19 prime ministers (not least our current one) as well as old boys ranging from
George Orwell and James Bond author Ian Fleming to Boris Johnson and Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall. And if Eton is an educational elite then Pop is an even
smaller elite within it – one that elects its own members, who form not just an
exclusive network but one that doesn’t always admit the members you might
expect.
Mr Cameron, for instance, was not a Popper –
so at least I’m in good company. Not that I’d ever have wanted to join the
clubbable chaps in Pop; I was far too obstreperous and cheeky for that. But
their uniform, on the other hand… well they looked like peacocks strutting
among a horde of black crows and to a stripling teenager it all seemed rather
exotic. Here, in full, was the uniform of an Eton Popper: a black tailcoat with
braid piping; spongebag trousers in a houndstooth check; and a starched wing
collar with a white (hand-tied) bow tie.
The uniform
would usually be capped off with a thick cow-lick of hair, spit-polished black
lace-ups pickers), plus a gardenia or a rose in the button-hole. While the rest
of us schoolboys had been shoe-horned into grubby black waistcoats the Poppers
were allowed to wear any waistcoat they pleased. least a dozen and you can only
imagine the glorious oneupmanship that was involved.
I remember
waistcoats of green leather, waistcoats spangled with Pearly King buttons, and
even a hideous fur electric pink number. Prince William, when he was a Popper,
tended towards the staid and I believe his most daring outfit was a patriotic
Union Jack. To all intents and purposes the Poppers don exactly the same sort
of clothes that the gentlemen will be wearing at next month’s royal wedding – though
having been in tails for at least four years a Popper can carry off the look
with much more ease than the chaps who’ve hired their kit from Moss Bros.
Once you
realise the sheer showiness of the Pop uniform it is all too easy to understand
how David Cameron came to be quite so enamoured with the Bullingdon Club at
Oxford. For, if he had been elected into Pop he might never had quite such an
urge to dress like a foppish Bullingdon blue-blood (though London Mayor Boris
Johnson was in both Pop and the Bullingdon Club). Within Eton, Pop was a
self-electing club for the sports stars, which certainly did not include me,
and the hearty good guys. There were about25 of them and they were charged with
keeping the 1,300 other boys for such misdemeanours as not being properly
dressed, or even “socking” (eating) in the street.
I still
recall how, when I was 13, an enormous Popper accosted me in the street for not
wearing any cuff links. “Have a pound in my room by lock‑up,” he told me.
Ostensibly all this loot went to charity, though doubtless the Poppers were
just using it for extra beer money at the school pub, Tap. Speaking to
contemporaries who were members, one is struck by the fact that while Pop is
exclusive it does not necessarily bother itself with the most opulent
surroundings. “The Poppers had one room which was quite fusty but it did have a
huge television,” said one.
“It was a
bit like a St James’s club in that boys were put up for election but if there
was a single blackball against them then they weren’t in. Things have changed
more recently and now the Eton masters have a right of veto. You probably don’t
get quite so many bad eggs. “When a boy got elected into Pop we’d all charge
round to his house making a lot of noise. His room might be trashed and he’d
usually end up in the bath covered in beans, spaghetti, eggs and whatever else
we could find in his locker.
Pop was
predominantly filled with sports buffs and swells and that’s still pretty
accurate to this day. It appeals to people who like to dress up as a peacock.”
Pop was founded in 1811 and it was originally a debating society and had the
name “Popina”, from the Latin for “Tea-Shop” which is where the boys used to
meet. In its heyday Pop was the ultimate networking tool and could open the
most incredible doors. One can even see Pop’s shadow hanging over Prime
Minister Harold Macmillan when he culled half his cabinet during “The Night of the
Long Knives” in the late Fifties.
It’s said
that Macmillan sacked half his friends from Pop – only to replace them with the
other half. Fagging at Eton is now a distant memory but in my time in the
Eighties a Popper could fag off any boy on the street, sending him off to do
any chore he pleased. I still remember my outrage when a Popper took offence at
my smirking face and sent me to Windsor to buy him a postcard for his mother.
Another extraordinary aspect of the society was that 50 years ago Poppers were
empowered to deliver a “Pop tan” – where reprobate boys would be flogged by
every member of Pop.
One of the more famous recipients of such a
beating was the late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith. I was told: “Even when he was
quite young Jimmy Goldsmith was very precocious. He’d think nothing of going up
to London to place bets on races and often he’d place bets for other boys too.
Word got out that he’d been welching on the junior boys and he was given a Pop
tan. I know – because my father was one of the Poppers who caned him.”
He added:
“One of the strangethings about Pop is that it never goes away. You find it
cropping up in a lot of Etonians’ obituaries. These are people who may well
have won VCs or who are captains of industry – and yet for some reason the fact
that they were a member of Pop is seen to be on a par with anything else that
they’ve done.” It will be interesting to see who turns out for Pop’s 200th
anniversary this summer. It’s being held at Fellows’ Eyot, a field next to the
Thames – though at £250 a head I hope they’ll be drinking the very best of the
college wine cellar.
There’s no
chance of an invite for me though I have been invited to talk to Eton’s
Literary Society next week. I’ll be having dinner with some enthused boys and
also my favourite master (still there 30 years later)! There won’t be a Popper
in sight. And I know which dinner I’d rather attend.
Bill Coles
was at Eton from 1978 to 1982. He was in the same year as Boris Johnson, Earl
Spencer, fraudster Darius Guppy and Thai Prime Minister Mark Vejjajiva.
Friday 26 November 2021
BARBOUR COWEN COMMANDO WAX JACKET
The Cowen Commando Jacket has been developed from an original wartime design customised by Barbour on behalf of one if its favourite British Army customers. The original was returned many times to Barbours Customer Services department for re-waxing, adaptations and numerous pocket additions, and saw service in the Falklands and the Gulf before being retired to the Barbour archives. It was then that its potential for Civvies Street was spotted. In medium weight wax, with re-enforced shoulder pads and many pockets this contemporary wax jacket is finished with the ultimate badge of pride, the Union Jack.
EDITORIAL
BARBOUR
COWEN COMMANDO WAX JACKET
24.12.14
https://www.xileclothing.com/blog/article-60-barbour-cowen-commando-wax-jacket.html
As a
quintessentially British label created with the outdoors in mind, Barbour
jackets have a long history of being worn by the armed forces. The brand’s
military heritage forms the basis for the brand new “Commando” collection which
takes its name from the iconic Cowen Commando jacket that has been a mainstay
of the Barbour collection since the 1990’s.
The Cowen
Commando returns in its classic military waxed style – featuring shoulder
epaulettes and camo features throughout. The jacket has been slimmed down for
SS ’15 and also features the new collection branding throughout. This promises
to be a must have style for the coming season – combining Barbour’s classic
sage colourway with a vibrant camo detailing throughout.
Although
the jacket was released as part of Barbour’s collection in the 90’s – it was
first created for the military during the Second World War; the exact details
of this story are hush hush however many have suggested it was created on the
orders of Walter “Tich” Cowan, who served in both the first and second world
wars and singlehandedly took on an Italian tank crew aged 70!
Whatever
the source of this style, there’s no doubt that it is here to stay. Look out
for the new Commando collection arriving very soon – all pieces pay homage to
their British roots and feature a tonal Union Jack badge as well as the classic
Barbour branding.
Wednesday 24 November 2021
The Men's Fashion Book
The Men's Fashion Book:
Phaidon Editors with an Introduction by Jacob
Gallagher
About the
book
‘Is this
the chicest coffee-table book ever printed? Quite possibly.’ – Financial Times,
How To Spend It
https://www.phaidon.com/store/fashion-culture/the-men-s-fashion-book-9781838662479/
The
first-ever authoritative A–Z celebration of the 500 greatest names in men’s
fashion – 200 years of men’s style through the work of designers, brands,
photographers, icons, models, retailers, tailors, and stylists around the globe
The Men's
Fashion Book is an unparalleled A–Z deep-dive into the people and brands that
have produced and inspired the most memorable looks in menswear – and are
advancing today’s renaissance in men’s clothing and style.
Created in
collaboration with Jacob Gallagher, men’s fashion editor at Off Duty for the
Wall Street Journal, this stunning book with its striking cover design and red
and black marker ribbons, documents more than two centuries of men’s fashion,
bringing its history to life through iconic, inspirational images, from
traditional suits to streetwear, and beyond.
Inside this
ground-breaking book you’ll find approximately 130 designers, 100 brands, 70
icons, 40 photographers, 40 footwear and accessory designers, 30 retailers, 25
stylists, editors, and writers, 20 tailors, 15 publications, 15 models, and 10
illustrators, as well as art directors, influencers, milliners, and textile
designers. Arranged alphabetically, the 500 entries spotlight living legends
such as Giorgio Armani and Paul Smith alongside today’s most innovative
creatives, including Ozwald Boateng, Alessandro Michele, Kim Jones, and Virgil
Abloh, and cutting-edge brands such as Bode, Sacai, and Supreme.
Following
in the footsteps of Phaidon’s globally acclaimed and bestselling The Fashion
Book, this is the most comprehensive guide to the men’s fashion world ever
published.
"SPENCER" (2021) Costume Analysis and Capsule Review
How do Kristen Stewart’s Chanel ensembles in Spencer
compare to Diana, Princess of Wales’s real life wardrobe?
Tatler investigates the fashion behind the film
By Chandler
Tregaskes
17 November
2021
https://www.tatler.com/gallery/kristen-stewart-diana-princess-of-wales-spencer-style
There are
many similarities between Kristen Stewart and Diana, Princess of Wales. They’re
both breathtaking beauties with a penchant for short blonde hair, they share
pioneering attitudes towards fashion, and most importantly, they’re both Chanel
girls.
Diana often
opted for ultra-chic skirt sets from the French luxury house in pastels and
bouclé accompanied by her trusted quilted 2.55 bag. Stewart is the current
poster girl, wearing an impeccable exclusively Chanel wardrobe for the
worldwide press tour. It comes as no surprise then that costume designer
Jacqueline Durran would collaborate with the house for Stewart’s on-screen
portrayal too.
Given
access to the extensive archives of the historic house, Durran was able to
recreate the same glamour that Diana breathed effortlessly. Focusing on photos
between 1988 and 1992 for inspiration, Durran called on Chanel’s bold
shoulders, oversized lapels and gold buttons from the era to resurrect the
unparalleled chic of the late princess.
Unlike how
The Crown only admitted it was fictional after backlash from Buckingham Palace,
Spencer was clear that it was a fictional reimagining from the outset. This
allows for some creative license when styling K-Stew, however, any portrayal of
the People’s Princess is destined to be picked apart from sovereign style
sleuths and historical accuracy hounds looking for any slip up to pounce on.
Despite
this, the wardrobe in the new film is divine. Positively brimming with vintage
Chanel, any fashion fan will rejoice in the delectable designs of yesteryear.
See below Kristen Stewart's Diana portrayals, and their original counterparts. The
jury is out.
Monday 22 November 2021
The Beatles: Get Back - A Sneak Peek from Peter Jackson
The Beatles: Get Back
The
Beatles: Get Back is an upcoming three-part documentary series directed and
produced by Peter Jackson. It covers the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let
It Be, which had the working title of Get Back, and draws from material
originally captured for Michael Lindsay-Hogg's 1970 documentary of the album.
Conceived originally as a feature film, each episode of The Beatles: Get Back
is about two hours in length, making up a total of six hours.
Jackson
characterised The Beatles: Get Back as "a documentary about a
documentary". Commentators have described it as challenging longtime
beliefs that the making of Let It Be was marked entirely by tensions between
the Beatles, showing a more upbeat side of the production. It will premiere on
Disney+ consecutively on 25, 26 and 27 November 2021.
Production
of The Beatles: Get Back employed film restoration techniques developed for
Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old. Over 55 hours of footage and 140 hours of
audio stemming from the original Let It Be film project were made available to
Jackson's team. In reference to the long-reported acrimony surrounding the
original Get Back project, Jackson wrote in a press statement that he was
"relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth ... Sure,
there's moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been
associated with."
Jackson
spent around four years in a darkened suite editing the series. It was created
with cooperation from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon
(Yoko Ono) and George Harrison (Olivia Harrison), as well as music supervisor
Giles Martin (son of George Martin and a regular producer of Beatles projects
since 2006). In a news release, McCartney said: "I am really happy that
Peter has delved into our archives to make a film that shows the truth about
the Beatles recording together", while Starr echoed: "There was hours
and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the Let It Be
film that came out [in 1970]. There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will
show that."
The final
cut covers 21 days in the studio with the Beatles as they rehearse for a
forthcoming album, concert and film project, and climaxes with the full
42-minute rooftop concert. Jackson described the series as "a documentary
about a documentary", as well as a "tougher" one than Let It Be,
since it includes controversial events such as Harrison's brief resignation
from the band, which the original film had not covered. With the exception of
specific shots where no alternative exists, most of the material that had been
featured in Let It Be was not reused in Get Back, and the series primarily used
footage captured from alternative camera angles in the case of sequences shared
between the two works. According to Jackson, this choice was made out of a
desire to "not step on Let It Be's toes so that it is still a film that
has a reason to exist, and our [series] will be a supplement to it".
Filmmakers
convinced Disney+ to allow for swearing to be included in the documentary
series. According to Jackson: "The Beatles are scouse boys and they freely
swear but not in an aggressive or sexual way."
Release
The project
was announced on 30 January 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles'
rooftop concert. On 11 March 2020, The Walt Disney Studios announced they had
acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Jackson's documentary, now titled
The Beatles: Get Back. It was initially set to be released as a film by Walt
Disney Studios Motion Pictures on 4 September 2020 in the United States and
Canada, with a global release to follow.[14] On 12 June 2020, it was pushed
back to 27 August 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On 17 June
2021, it was announced that The Beatles: Get Back would instead be released as
a three-part documentary series on Disney+ on the Thanksgiving weekend of 25,
26 and 27 November 2021, with each episode being about two hours in length. On
16 November 2021, Paul McCartney attended the UK premiere of The Beatles: Get
Back.
Marketing
On 21
December 2020, a five-minute preview montage from the reproduced film,
presented by Jackson, was released on YouTube and Disney+.The video features
the band members dancing, doing impersonations, laughing, Lennon reading a
newspaper article about Harrison's encounter with a photographer, as well as Lennon
and McCartney "jokingly singing 'Two of Us' through gritted teeth". A
one-minute clip of the film was released on YouTube on 12 November, containing
a scene with the Beatles working on the song "I've Got a Feeling".
The release
was preceded by the publication of a book of the same name – the first official
book credited to the band since The Beatles Anthology (2000) – featuring an
introduction by Hanif Kureishi. The book was initially scheduled for 31 August
2021 to coincide with the initial August release of the documentary, but was
ultimately released on 12 October, ahead of the documentary.The documentary was
also preceded by the release of a remixed, deluxe edition box set of the Let It
Be album on October 15 by Apple Records.
Sunday 21 November 2021
Saturday 20 November 2021
Friday 19 November 2021
FALL/WINTER 2021 / TODD SNYDER COLLABORATION WITH J. PRESS .
Todd
Snyder’s New Collaboration Is with Preppy Powerhouse J. Press Chris Rovzar
11:03 PM IST, 08 Nov 2021 11:19 PM IST, 08 Nov 2021 Save (Bloomberg) -- Fresh
off the second collection he created in partnership with L.L. Bean, menswear
designer Todd Snyder is doing another take on America’s preppy heritage.
Catalogs that feature a new collaboration with tailoring emporium J. Press will
hit mailb
Read more
at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/pursuits/todd-snyder-j-press-collaboration-follows-l-l-bean-champion
Copyright ©
BloombergQuint
FALL/WINTER
2021
TODD SNYDER EMBRACES CLASSIC COLLEGIATE STYLE WITH J.
PRESS COLLABORATION
PUBLISHED
ON NOVEMBER 16, 2021
https://www.thefashionisto.com/collection/jpress-todd-snyder-fall-2021-menswear/
It may be
time to survey your wardrobe and make room for new additions! Todd Snyder
serves up another collection of irresistible classics for fall. This time
around, the designer partners with J. Press.
Snyder
offers J. Press a modern platform to appreciate its time-tested designs.
Founded in 1902 by Jacobi Press, J. Press came to fruition on Yale University’s
Connecticut campus. Since its founding, J. Press has served as a
standard-bearer for Ivy League fashion.
The Sack
Suit, the Boxy Chino, and the Shaggy Dog sweater, a Shetland design beloved by
President John F. Kennedy and actor Cary Grant, were all pioneered by the
company. To give these college essentials a contemporary spin, J. Press
requested Todd Snyder partner with them.
“J. Press
has always been a little under the radar, which makes them cool,” says Snyder.
“So we took some of their iconic pieces and gave them a little attitude.” The
designer adds, “And we took some of our styles like our chore coat and J.
Press-ified them in Harris Tweed.”
Thursday 18 November 2021
Tuesday 16 November 2021
Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci
Gaga, Gucci and prison ferrets: how true crime
conquered the world
Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci stars Lady Gaga in a
tale of fashion and murder. But is true crime – once the soul of cinema, from
thrillers and horrors to westerns – now outgrowing the big screen?
Danny Leigh
Wed 17 Nov
2021 06.00 GMT
What took
you so long, House of Gucci? This story was destined to become a movie from the
moment the bullet left fashion heir Maurizio Gucci dead outside his Milan
office in March 1995 – shot, a witness said, by a hitman with a “beautiful,
clean hand”. The film by Ridley Scott now finally arrives dripping with star
power, and Lady Gaga as Gucci’s ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani. But the story alone
was enough: a glittering tickbox of money, revenge and a villainess kept
company in jail by an illicit pet ferret called Bambi.
True crime
gold. So why, now that the film is actually here, does the Gucci case feel a
strange fit for a movie after all? Put it down to timing. The film’s
development began in entertainment prehistory: 2006. Back then, a lavish movie
was still the grand prize for any news story, and true crime – that trashbag
genre – would simply be glad of the association. Now though, film and true
crime have the air of an estranged couple. Had Maurizio Gucci been gunned down
on Via Palestro last week, Netflix would already have the rights and the podcast
would be on Spotify.
Such is how
true crime conquered the world. The vast success of the 2014 podcast Serial
remains the origin story, but the peak never seems to come. The genre has
become bigger than the movies – made that way by an interlocking partnership
with pods and streaming.
“When I
started studying true crime, nobody took it seriously,” says New York writer
Jean Murley, who in 2008 published The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder
and American Popular Culture. “Now it feels like the dominant form of pop
culture storytelling. And I’m glad. I think it has a lot to tell us about
ourselves.” It just probably wouldn’t tell us in a film. “True crime movies
were definitely bigger in the past,” says Murley. “Media changes. We change.”
Yet the
movies were there first. Consider the classics: Fritz Lang’s trailblazing M
sprang out of real child murders; Psycho saw Hitchcock repurpose the grim Ed
Gein case. Beyond individual milestones, the very stuff of film storytelling –
gangster movies, horror, thrillers, westerns – all grew out of true crime. It
is less a sub-genre than the soul of cinema.
The
big-screen genre became a sliding scale, from sober documentary to the starry
and scandalous. House of Gucci is the latter, of course – a bloody soap.Of
course Jared Leto is involved, and already a meme in his velvet suit at the
London premiere. The red carpet hijinks feel old-fangled too. At the higher
end, true crime now carries itself differently. Stories may still focus on the
wealthy and notorious – but only with a certain gravity of purpose.
Take The
People v OJ Simpson, 2016’s acclaimed longform dramatisation. Stylistically, it
had everything a series gives and a movie cannot. The breathing space of its
running time, the episodic structure, room for breadcrumb-trail detail – all
this came with streaming and TV, which are perfect for true crime. But there
was also a question of tone. After Serial, a bar had been set, whatever the
medium. If a project was going to reopen a famous old wound such as, say, the
killing of Nicole Brown Simpson, it would also have to widen the lens, humanise
the victim, contextualise everything. The mere crime could not be the only
story.
Hollywood has always made money from a gun and a girl.
The gun is glorified and the girl – the woman – is silent
For
podcasts, the whole point has been the quotidian. Terrible murders, everyday
victims. The lesson of movies such as M or Psycho – that monsters are among us
so FFS roll the window up – now comes instead from Park Predators and Wine
& Crime. The gulf is only made more pronounced by the low-tech of it all,
millions of dollars away from the aggressive gloss of a Ridley Scott movie.
Still,
plenty of true crime podcasts indulge in cinematic scene-setting. This American
Life – the series from which Serial span-off – says it makes “movies for
radio”. But the filmic touches feel less like homage than a cannibalising for
parts.
Even a
Hollywood crime story now becomes a podcast. Film-maker Vanessa Hope is the
granddaughter of movie producer Walter Wanger and actor Joan Bennett, once a
leading femme fatale. In 1951, suspecting an affair, Wanger shot his wife’s
agent, Jennings Lang, in a Beverly Hills parking lot. This year, Hope told the
story in a 10-part podcast, Love Is a Crime, with Jon Hamm and Zooey Deschanel
playing her grandparents. To Hope, it made perfect sense that the project was
not a movie. “Hollywood has always made money from a gun and a girl. The gun is
glorified and the girl – the woman – is silent.” The very nature of film, she
says, is wrong for the job. “A two-hour movie always reduces the full arc of
people’s lives – and the person most reduced is the victim.”
A similar
ripple of change has reached Britain. Last September, huge audiences watched
Des, ITV’s three-part drama about the 1983 arrest of Scottish serial killer
Dennis Nilsen. Co-writer Luke Neal had been inspired by The People v OJ
Simpson. “You start out thinking you’re watching to find out how OJ got away
with it. And the brilliance is, he ends up a minor character. What keeps you
there is the human cost.”
In Des,
Neal created the same dynamic. “We watch these stories because we want to know
who this person is who takes other people’s lives. In fact, he doesn’t matter.
What does is the people whose lives he took. The problem with true crime is it
wants to compete with fiction, so you end up with countless Ted Bundy movies.
But real killers have no glamour. The truth isn’t Jamie Dornan in a sexy game
of cat and mouse.”
Longform
true crime upped the ante elsewhere too. Another landmark was The Jinx, Andrew
Jarecki’s 2015 portrait of the US real estate heir and now convicted murderer
Robert Durst. The finale featured a muttered confession, seemingly recorded by
accident. How could a movie match that? (And who now remembers All Good Things,
the Durst-inspired movie released by Jarecki five years earlier, starring a
vague Ryan Gosling?)
The impulse
to crack cases on air has been wired into the true crime podcast. That the
results often end in a shrug is not a dealbreaker. Loose threads are simply
picked up online. But for a Hollywood movie, uncertainty is death. The
exception that proved the rule was David Fincher’s doubt-shrouded Zodiac, a
box-office hit that inspired not a single rip-off. (Fincher then took his
serial killer habit to Netflix with the sleekly titillating series Mindhunter.)
But true
crime as live investigation is not the only new remit. Genre fans have always
skewed female. Podcasts have only intensified that, and the result is a
landscape of work made by women for women about – and this can seem an odd
dynamic – women being murdered. There is an explanation. Social psychologist
Amanda Vicary is a true crime fan with a professional interest. “My research,”
she says, “shows that women like true crime when it gives them information
about techniques to escape a killer.” If horror movies give our fear centres a
harmless work-out, modern true crime has a bleakly practical purpose. “Women
listen,” Vicary adds, “to find out what to do if they’re thrown in the trunk of
a car.”
Of course,
House of Gucci centres on a woman too. The Black Widow trope is as old as it is
statistically improbable and commercially alluring. If the story overlaps with
Killer Women With Piers Morgan, it is not the first film to draw a prestige
male director to a real story of a woman accused. This year’s other major true
crime-ish movie was Stillwater, with Tom McCarthy fictionalising the case of
Amanda Knox, who was acquitted after four years in an Italian jail for murder.
Knox herself went public with her distress.
House of
Gucci has also drawn criticism from family members on various grounds: 1)
violation of privacy; 2) Al Pacino’s rendering of patriarch Aldo Gucci (“fat,
short, ugly”). But it would be a mistake to think the old hulk of movie true
crime was the only problem. The whole genre still lives on ethical thin ice.
The success may not be helping. This September, a giddy podcast-ish hubbub
greeted the disappearance of American “vanlifer” Gabby Petito. It only grew
louder when she was found to have been killed. Big True Crime was already at
work. “When you turn on Hulu,” her mother, Nichole Schmidt, tweeted this month,
“and your daughter’s story is the recommended show.”
Even lovers
of the genre are also troubled by a fixation with one kind of victim. “True crime
has never reflected the reality of murder,” Jean Murley says. “It’s almost a
fantasy genre. Who gets killed in America? Disproportionately, it is young men
of colour. But the quintessential true crime victim is a young, pretty, white
woman. It’s very ritualised.” Murley will consider this and other matters in an
updated version of her book. There is a lot to say about true crime in the 21st
century.
Des writer
Neal is optimistic – cautiously. “I do think true crime is changing,” he says.
“And that’s good. It needs to. Because actually, life is not cheap.”
House of Gucci is released in UK cinemas on 26
November.
Interview
The Gucci wife and the hitman: fashion's darkest tale
Abigail
Haworth
When Patrizia Reggiani married Maurizio Gucci, they
became one of Italy’s first celebrity power couples. But then he left her – and
she had him murdered. Abigail Haworth unpicks an incredible tale of glamour,
sex, betrayal, death and prison in the dizzying world of high fashion
Patrizia
Reggiani perched on an armchair wearing a short, colourful dress and sunglasses
Death by
design: Patrizia Reggiani had her husband Maurizio Gucci gunned down – a crime
for which she would spend 16 years in prison. Photograph: Uli Weber/The
Observer
@AbiHaworth
Sun 24 Jul
2016 08.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/jul/24/the-gucci-wife-and-the-hitman-fashions-darkest-tale
Two years
ago, not long after Patrizia Reggiani was released from prison, a camera crew
from a trashy Italian TV show turned up unannounced at her Milan workplace.
Reggiani had just spent 16 years inside after being convicted of arranging the
murder, in March 1995, of her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci, the last of the Gucci
family dynasty to run the luxury brand. The former socialite had always
maintained her innocence – her best friend had set her up, she said – but the
TV crew caught her in a reckless mood.
“Patrizia,
why did you hire a hitman to kill Maurizio Gucci? Why didn’t you shoot him
yourself?” badgered the reporter.
“My
eyesight is not so good,” she lobbed back. “I didn’t want to miss.”
Understandably
then, when I try to find her, Reggiani’s inner circle doesn’t seem keen to let
her near another journalist. “She’s not here. She’s off work with a bad back,”
says Alessandra Brunero, co-owner of Bozart, a Milanese costume jewellery firm
that has employed Reggiani as a “design consultant” since April 2014.
Sentenced
to 26 years on appeal, Reggiani was required to find a job as a condition of
her parole. She turned down her first offer of release in 2011, according to
the Italian press, because the very idea of working horrified her. “I’ve never
worked in my life and I don’t intend to start now,” she told her lawyer.
Bozart,
with its Renaissance-style premises full of sparkling necklaces and
chandeliers, was obviously an acceptable compromise. Brunero and her
business-partner husband have now become Reggiani’s de facto minders, tasked
with ensuring the 67-year-old sticks to her parole and quietly rebuilds her
life as a regular citizen.
Reggiani in
court in 1998, her face impassive
‘I am a
very strong person. I survived all the years in captivity’: Reggiani in court
in 1998. Photograph: EPA
“Oh, mamma
mia, it’s not easy,” says Brunero, a stylish 40-something. She invites me
inside, and I get the impression she really needs to talk. “I cried after that
TV interview. It was terrible,” she says, putting her head in her hands.
“Naturally, Patrizia was only joking…”
Even before
the impromptu “confession”, persuading Reggiani to remain low-key was a lost
cause. One of her first acts of freedom was to go shopping on Via Monte
Napoleone – Milan’s Bond Street – decked out in gaudy jewels and movie-star
sunglasses, with a large pet macaw perched on her shoulder. The paparazzi
couldn’t believe their luck. Lady Gucci, as she used to be known, was back.
The gunning
down of 46-year-old Maurizio Gucci one morning in the red-carpeted foyer of his
office, and the subsequent murder trial, captivated Italy in the late 1990s. It
was sensational fin de siècle stuff. This was elegant Milan, not mob-riddled
Naples, and execution-style killings of the city’s glamorous elite were
unknown. Reggiani, dubbed the “Liz Taylor of luxury labels” in the 1970s and
80s, was an immediate suspect. She had openly threatened to kill Gucci after
their split. But, without evidence, the crime went unsolved for nearly two
years. A tip-off led to her arrest in 1997, along with four others, including
the hitman.
I met Maurizio at a party and he fell madly in love
with me. I was exciting and different
While the
public loved it, the Gucci company was less enthralled. After decades of
infighting among the heirs of the founder Guccio Gucci, the brand was no longer
under family control. Maurizio, a grandson of Guccio who’d ousted his relatives
from the business to become CEO in 1992, had been forced to sell his stake 18
months before he died. Ownership was taken over by Bahrain- based investment
bank Investcorp. The murder coincided with a thrilling revival of the brand’s
image in the mid-1990s under new boss Domenico De Sole and edgy young designer
Tom Ford.
“The last
thing Gucci wanted was a sordid scandal,” says Giusi Ferrè, a veteran
Milan-based fashion writer and cultural critic with trademark spiky orange
hair. “The company tried to ignore the whole drama and they wanted everyone
else to ignore it, too.” The label’s continued rise over the past two decades
has eclipsed memories of the murder even more. Gucci is currently on yet
another high. Revenue is soaring, and androgynous new creative director
Alessandro Michele recently turned Westminster Abbey into the most hallowed
venue ever for his latest collection. Yet the amnesia is odd, because the saga
has everything: glamour, greed, sex, death, betrayal, raging status anxiety. It
probably says more about the primal allure of a name like Gucci than all the
sales figures in the world.
After
Reggiani was arrested, the media dubbed her Vedova Nera – the Black Widow – and
touted all the stereotypical theories about her likely motives. She was jealous
of Maurizio’s girlfriend, she wanted his money, she was bitter about his
neglect, she was plain mad. If there is a grain of truth in any of these, there
was also something deeper, too. “Everything Reggiani was stemmed from being a
Gucci,” says Ferrè. “It was her whole identity, even as an ex-wife. She was
furious with Maurizio for selling out.” Even after her release from prison,
Reggiani couldn’t let go. She told La Repubblica newspaper in 2014 that, now
she was available again, she hoped to return to the company fold. “They need
me,” she said. “I still feel like a Gucci – in fact, the most Gucci of them
all.”
Bozart’s
owners relent a week later and agree to introduce me to Reggiani at their
offices. She appears in their grand sitting room wearing a short floral dress.
She is tiny, barely 5ft tall, although her enormous hair, now reddish brown,
and nude high heels give her extra height. “That’s a lovely dress,” I say to
break the ice. “It’s Zara. I don’t earn enough at this place to buy proper
clothes,” she replies, throwing a disgruntled look at her hovering employers.
We sit down
on matching white sofas to espressos and iced water, and I ask her about life
in Milan’s San Vittore prison. “I think I am a very strong person because I
survived all these years in captivity,” she says in the heavily accented
English she picked up during her jet-setting days. “I slept a lot. I took care
of my plants. I looked after Bambi, my pet ferret.” Bambi, she adds, was a
special privilege negotiated by her lawyer, but the creature met a sticky end
when a fellow inmate accidentally sat on him. “I don’t like to talk about this
time at all,” she says, already keen to change the subject. “It is all a bad
dream to me.” Reggiani won’t admit out loud that she was in prison, referring
to her incarceration as “my stay at Vittore Residence.”
She relaxes
more when we start to talk about the past. She was born in a small town outside
Milan to a waitress and a much older man who made his fortune in trucking.
They were
very rich, but not part of Milan’s high society. As a young woman she liked
fine things – her father spoiled her with mink coats and fast cars – and she
found her way on to the elite social circuit. “I met Maurizio at a party and he
fell madly in love with me. I was exciting and different,” says Reggiani. The
Guccis came from Florence so Maurizio also felt something of an outsider. “I
didn’t think much of him at first. He was just the quiet boy whose teeth
crossed over at the front.” Reggiani had other suitors, but the young Gucci
chased her hard with all the riches at his disposal.
They
married in 1972 when they were both around 24. The union caused a rift with
Gucci’s father Rodolfo, one of Guccio Gucci’s sons, who disapproved of
Reggiani’s background and, no doubt, her strong personality. Maurizio was an only
child whose mother had died when he was five, and his father had always been
overprotective.
“Maurizio
felt free with me. We had fun, we were a team,” says Reggiani. Rodolfo softened
after she gave birth to a daughter, Alessandra, and he could see that she
“really loved Maurizio”. The elder Gucci bought the couple numerous properties,
including a luxury penthouse in New York’s Olympic Tower. Early adopters of
celebrity coupledom, the pair rode around Manhattan in a chauffeur-driven car
with the personalised plate “Mauizia”. They hung out with Jackie Onassis and
the Kennedy brood whenever they were all in town.
I was angry with Maurizio about many things. But
losing the family business was stupid
“We were a
beautiful couple and we had a beautiful life, of course,” says Reggiani,
throwing her hands in the air and briefly leaving them there. “It still hurts
to think about this.” She perks up when she remembers the lavish colour-themed
parties she threw in the early 1980s – “one was all orange and yellow,
including the food” – and the trips to private islands on their 64m wooden
yacht, the Creole, which Maurizio bought to mark the birth of their second
daughter, Allegra. (Worth millions, it is still owned and sailed by the
couple’s two daughters). Their charmed world also included a ski chalet in
Saint Moritz, a holiday home in Acapulco and a farm in Connecticut.
It all
started to unravel after the death of Rodolfo in 1983, Reggiani says, when
Maurizio inherited his father’s 50% stake in Gucci. “Maurizio got crazy. Until
then I was his chief adviser about all Gucci matters. But he wanted to be the
best, and he stopped listening to me.” The Gucci brand had been losing prestige
from over-licensing its famed double-G logo and from mass production of canvas
bags. Maurizio had a plan to restore it to high-end glory by reverting to the
exquisite craftsmanship the company was built upon.
He fought
for years with his uncle and cousins, who jointly owned the other half of the
firm, until he pulled off a plot to buy them out with the help of Investcorp.
The couple’s marriage imploded along the way. Apparently weary of Reggiani’s
constant “meddling”, one evening Maurizio packed an overnight bag and left.
Meanwhile, the company lost millions under his control. Reggiani had been
right, at least, that Maurizio was mismanaging business and not creating enough
revenue to execute his grand ideas. His personal fortune was dwindling and he
was forced to sell Gucci wholly to Investcorp for $120m in 1993.
“I was
angry with Maurizio about many, many things at that time,” says Reggiani. “But
above all, this. Losing the family business. It was stupid. It was a failure. I
was filled with rage, but there was nothing I could do.” She turns her head and
drops her voice so low I can hardly hear her. “He shouldn’t have done that to
me.”
Giuseppe
Onorato was sweeping away leaves inside the arched doorway of Via Palestro 20,
the graceful building where Maurizio Gucci had his private office, at 8:30am on
27 March 1995. “It was a lovely spring morning, very quiet,” says Onorato, now
71, the former building doorman and the only person who witnessed what occurred
next. “Mr Gucci arrived carrying some magazines and said good morning. Then I
saw a hand. It was a beautiful, clean hand, and it was pointing a gun.”
The gun
fired three shots at Gucci’s back as he went up the steps, and a fourth into
his head as he collapsed. “I thought it was a joke. Then the shooter saw me. He
lifted the gun again and fired two more times. ‘What a shame,’ I thought. ‘This
is how I die.’”
Reggiani couldn’t bear the thought of another woman
taking the power, status and money she ‘had earned’
Onorato
can’t remember how he made it to the foyer’s steps after he’d been shot twice
in the arm, but he was sitting there in a pool of blood when the carabinieri
arrived. “I was cradling Mr Gucci’s head. He died in my arms,” says the
ex-doorman.
Speaking on
the phone from Sardinia, where he has a small holiday house, Onorato still
sounds incredulous that he survived. “I still have stabbing pains in my left
arm, but every day for the past 21 years I’ve woken up thankful I’m alive.” The
gunman vanished into Milan’s Monday morning rush hour. The aftermath wasn’t
easy for the doorman.
As the only
direct witness, Onorato was terrified that the killer would return. “I was a
poor man, so I had to go back to work at Via Palestro 20 when I recovered. I
had a panic attack every time an unfriendly looking stranger approached.”
After
Reggiani’s conviction, the courts ordered her to pay Onorato compensation of
the equivalent of roughly £142,000. He has yet to receive any of it, he says.
Reggiani’s daughters, who are now in their late 30s and have always stuck by
their mother (at least publicly), directly inherited Maurizio Gucci’s millions,
as well as the yacht and properties in New York, Saint Moritz and Milan.
Reggiani declared herself nullatenente – the Italian word for bankrupt, meaning
“a person who has nothing”.
“I’m not
bitter,” says Onorato, “but I do wonder, if a rich person had been wounded in
that doorway instead of me, whether they’d have been treated with more
respect.” He has a point. When, for instance, Gucci’s lawyers proposed a
divorce settlement to Reggiani of £2.5m plus £650,000 per year, she rejected it
as “a mere bowl of lentils” and landed a better deal.
Onorato
isn’t the only person whose life was turned upside down by the murder. Paola
Franchi, now 61, had been Gucci’s live-in partner for five years before his
death. The couple shared a palatial apartment on the city centre boulevard,
Corso Venezia, along with Franchi’s 11-year-old son Charly, and had planned to
marry. Tall and blonde, Franchi didn’t fare much better than Reggiani in the
trial’s media coverage, which often portrayed her as a glamorous gold digger.
“Oh, they
always resort to these stupid types,” Franchi says. “Actually my previous
husband, whom I left for Maurizio, was even richer, so it was all nonsense.” An
interior designer turned artist, Franchi lives in a converted porcelain factory
in Milan and spends half the year in Kenya. Her home is stuffed with books,
paintings and exotic souvenirs. She’s chatty and quick to laugh, with a
lightness of spirit that I wasn’t expecting.
During the
trial it emerged that Reggiani had put pressure on her hired accomplices to
carry out the murder quickly, before Franchi and Gucci’s wedding. Reggiani’s
one-time best friend Pina Auriemma, who confessed to arranging the hitman,
testified that Reggiani couldn’t bear the thought of another woman taking her
place as Mrs Maurizio Gucci – and with it, the power, status and money that she
“had earned”.
She also
feared that her daughters could lose some or all of their inheritance if the
couple had children. “Patrizia was stalking us,” says Franchi. “She still had
spies in Maurizio’s circle and she knew all about our plans, his business
dealings, everything. She called many times abusing him and threatening to kill
him.”
If Gucci
didn’t take Reggiani’s calls, she sent him diatribes on cassette tape, later
played in court, saying he was “a monster” for neglecting her and their
daughters, and warning that “the inferno for you is yet to come”.
“I begged
him to hire a bodyguard,” says Franchi, “but he refused. He didn’t believe
Patrizia would go through with her threat because of their girls.”
My family has cut off my financial support. I have
nothing, I haven’t even met my two grandsons
Gucci and
Franchi had crossed paths briefly in their youth on the Euro-rich-kid party
circuit. They reconnected by chance when they were both reeling from unhappy
marriages. “We fell in love immediately. Maurizio used to tell me” – Franchi
starts to cry – “that we were two halves of the same apple.”
The day
after the murder she received an eviction order from Reggiani to move out of
the grand apartment she’d shared with Gucci. The notarised timestamp, Franchi
noticed, showed the papers had been drawn up at 11am the previous day – less
than three hours after Maurizio died. “In those days co-habiting couples had no
legal protection. Charly and I were out, just like that.”
Franchi
slowly began, as she puts it, “to build a different future”. But five years
later she suffered another tragedy. While visiting his father over Christmas,
her son Charly killed himself at the age of 16. “It was completely unexpected,”
she says. “He was a happy, shining boy, greatly loved. We think it was a flash
of teen madness.” Franchi has photos of Maurizio and Charly all over her house,
but says they’re not there so she can dwell on her pain. “I like to have their
faces around, to say hello. For a year after Charly died I felt a rage in my
soul, but then I got on with life. I’m the kind of person who has to keep
moving forward.” She poured her emotions into painting and writing, she says,
and is also active in a charity for troubled or suicidal teens, L’Amico Charly,
that her ex- husband set up in memory of their son.
When Franchi
moved out of the Corso Venezia apartment, Reggiani moved in with her daughters.
She lived there in luxury for the next two years, until one of her accomplices
boasted about the murder to the wrong person. The man informed the police, who
launched a sting operation to trick Reggiani and her four paid accomplices –
her friend Pina Auriemma, a friend of Auriemma’s who set up the hitman, the
hitman himself and the getaway driver – into discussing the crime on wiretapped
phones. It succeeded. Among other evidence they found at Reggiani’s home was
her Cartier diary, which had a one-word entry for the day of Gucci’s death:
“Paradeisos” – the Greek word for paradise.
In court,
Reggiani admitted she’d paid Auriemma around £200,000, but denied it was for
the murder, claiming Auriemma had arranged the hit herself and was threatening
to frame her if she didn’t pay. “But it was worth every lira,” Reggiani then
added, confusingly, unable to help herself even then. All five involved in the
murder plot were found guilty. Despite the Gucci company’s supposed
indifference to the scandal, on the day of the verdict the Italian media
reported that Gucci shops around the country hung silver handcuffs in their
windows. (Gucci declined to make any comment at all for this article.)
Paolo
Franchi in her decorative garden
‘I begged
Maurizio to hire a bodyguard’: Paolo Franchi, who Gucci lived with for five
years after leaving Reggiani. Photograph: Uli Weber/The Observer
At Bozart,
Brunero’s husband and co-owner Maurizio Manca gives me a tour of Reggiani’s new
workplace. It seems almost too perfect for her. The jewellery the upmarket firm
creates is designed to be big, ornate and dazzling. Manca, who is dressed all
in black and has a mop of floppy grey hair, freely admits the 60-year-old
company had its heyday in the 1980s when “there was corruption everywhere and
the money was flowing”. Stars, including Madonna and Pamela Anderson, have worn
Bozart’s designs which, best of all, supplied all the glitz worn by Linda
Evans’s character Krystle Carrington on the set of Dynasty.
When she’s
at work, Reggiani spends much of her day advising Bozart’s design team and
reading fashion magazines. “She’s like our Michael Schumacher – she keeps on
top of trends and test-drives our creations,” says Manca.
“I prefer
Senna. He has much more class,” Reggiani says, emerging from her portrait shoot
with the Observer photographer. There’s a pause while everyone remembers the
unfortunate fates of both drivers, and the analogy is quickly dropped. Reggiani
says she enjoys the job, but admits that she hasn’t found it easy to adjust to
the modern workplace. “I don’t like computers. They are quite evil.” Manca
points out, in her defence, that the fax machine was still cutting-edge
technology when she went to prison. Still, he adds that they had to remove her
computer from their internal network after she permanently deleted Bozart’s
entire photo archive.
Nobody says
it directly, but it seems clear a big reason for taking on Reggiani was to
generate publicity and try to rekindle the firm’s edge of flashy danger. If so,
it hasn’t been straightforward so far. When Reggiani first arrived she helped
to design a collection of rainbow coloured jewellery and evening bags inspired
by her pet macaw, Bo. Bozart held a launch in Milan in September 2014 and
invited the fashion press. “Everybody came and it was a big success,” says
Manca. “But it happened to be on the same day that Gucci was having a runway
show up the street. The next day there was nothing at all in the newspapers
about Patrizia’s collection.” Manca says the journalists later told him they’d
been leaned on by “someone at Gucci” not to publish. While Gucci wouldn’t
confirm or deny, an Italian fashion editor friend later doubts his claim. “The
fashion corps probably just didn’t like the parrot designs,” he says.
All the
same, Manca and Brunero appear to be genuinely fond of their employee. As the
afternoon goes by, Reggiani gets tired and cracks in her bravado appear. She
talks about how, by court order, she lives in a Milan townhouse with her
89-year-old mother, who is still in good health. “Sometimes I wish I was back
inside Vittore Residence because my mother is very difficult. She berates me
every day for no reason.” Reggiani’s daughters Alessandra and Allegra, who were
18 and 14 when she was arrested, are both married and now live in Switzerland.
Unimaginably rich thanks to their father’s estate, they haven’t visited
Reggiani much since her release.
It’s almost
the stuff of Greek tragedy. “We are going through a bad time now,” says Reggiani.
“They don’t understand me and have cut off my financial support. I have
nothing, and I haven’t even met my two grandsons.” She says she has “no idea”
what the future holds when her parole ends, possibly in a few months. She may
continue to work at Bozart and says she’d like to travel when she’s allowed to
leave the country again. She seems to have given up the idea of trying to find
a job at Gucci, even if she hasn’t quite let go of the past. “If I could see
Maurizio again I would tell him that I love him, because he is the person who
has mattered most to me in my life.” I ask her what she thinks he’d say to her
in reply, and she sounds a note of realism at last. “I think he’d say
the feeling wasn’t mutual.”