Anna Piaggi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anna Piaggi is an Italian fashion writer and style icon.
Anna Piaggi has written for fashion magazines such as the Italian edition of Vogue and, in the 1980s, the avant-garde magazine Vanity. She is known especially for double page spreads in the Italian Vogue, where her artistic flair has been given free expression in a montage of images and text, with layout by Luca Stoppini. Since 1969, she has used a bright red manual Olivetti typewriter for her work.
Piaggi has a large clothes collection, including 2865 dresses and 265 pairs of shoes, according to a 2006 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She dresses in an exuberant, unique and eclectic way, never appearing in the same outfit more than once in public. Such is her influence and knowledge in the fashion world, Manolo Blahnik has dubbed her 'The world's last great authority on frocks'.
Her associates in the fashion world include the fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (from the 1970s), who has often sketched her, and Manolo Blahnik, who is the designer of many of her shoes. She is the muse of British milliner Stephen Jones. She is also an admirer of British clothes designer Vivienne Westwood. She has lived in New York and has visited London and Italy periodically since the 1950s.
Piaggi was married to the photographer Alfa Castaldi in 1962 in New York. Castladi died in 1995.
- Karl Lagerfeld: A Fashion Journal, Anna Piaggi, Karl Lagerfeld. Thames and Hudson, 1986. ISBN 0-500-01395-0.
- Lagerfeld's Sketchbook: Karl Lagerfeld's Illustrated Fashion Journal of Anna Piaggi, Karl Lagerfeld. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988. ISBN 1-55584-019-1.
- Africa di Missoni per Italia 90, Anna Piaggi, Gianni Brera. Edizioni Electa, 1990. ISBN 88-435-3410-6.
- Anna Piaggi's Fashion Algebra, Anna Piaggi. Thames and Hudson, 1998. ISBN 0-500-01876-6.
- Doppie pagine di Anna Piaggi in Vogue, Anna Piaggi. Leonardo Arte, 1998. ISBN 88-7813-883-5.
- Manolo Blahnik Drawings, Anna Wintour, Michael Roberts, Anna Piaggi, André Leon Talley, Manolo Blahnik. Thames and Hudson, 2003. ISBN 0-500-28413-X.
- Anna Piaggi Fashion-ology, Judith Clark (editor). Victoria and Albert Museum, 2006. ISBN 0-9552335-0-X / ISBN 978-0-9552335-0-0 .
- Anna Piaggi: Fashion-ology, exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2 February – 23 April 2006.
- Style.com photographs
- Images, including Karl Lagerfeld sketches and David Bailey photographs.