Nino Cerruti, in Berlin in 2012. Franziska Krug (Getty Images for GQ)
The Italian designer Nino Cerruti (Biella, 1930), who revolutionized the male wardrobe in the sixties and trained talents such as Giorgio Armani or Narciso Rodriguez, has died this Saturday in Vercelli, a city in northern Italy, at the age of 91. According to a statement, the creator has died as a result of complications from a hip operation. Highly respected and known in the industry for his elegance and kindness, he is credited with modernizing the male suit, as well as brilliant contributions to such iconic film costumes as
Basic Instinct, Pretty Woman,
and
The Jewel of the Nile.
Born in Biella, one of the main textile centers in Italy, in a family dedicated to the production of wool, a very young Cerruti abandoned his studies in philosophy due to the premature death of his father to assume the direction of Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti, the factory that his grandfather had founded in 1881. A great connoisseur of the manufacture of excellent fabrics (he stated that “A fabric is like a painting: from a distance it may seem like a single color, but up close you discover all the shades and textures that make it up” ), at the end of the fifties he decided to go a step further by starting to make his own garments. Before launching his homonymous firm, Cerruti, in 1967, he had already revolutionized the market a decade earlier with the pioneering
prêt-à-porter
firm for men, Hitman.
Portrait of designer Nino Cerruti.ullstein bild (ullstein bild via Getty Images)
He is credited with inventing the stretchy, packable men's suit, much more comfortable than its predecessors, and he was also ahead of his time by deconstructing jackets and dyeing them floral prints such as designers like Dries van Noten might sign today.
After the news of his death was made public, Carlo Capasa, president of the Italian Fashion Chamber, defined him as "the first designer to understand the importance of creativity in men's fashion and to trust a young designer of immense talent as Giorgio Armani to change the rules of fashion”.
Being a mentor to Armani, whom he hired when he was still a complete unknown, is another of the achievements that are always pointed out when remembering
Signor Nino
, as he was known in the industry. “The news of his death makes me very sad. Although over the years we lost touch, I have always considered him one of the people who has had a real and positive influence on my life," the Italian creator wrote in a statement. “He was the one who forged my taste for refined tailoring, just as he taught me the importance of having an integral vision, both as a designer and as an entrepreneur.
Il Signor Nino
had a sharp eye, was genuinely curious and daring. We will miss him very much."
As Cerruti himself confessed to Suzy Menkes, an institution in fashion journalism that popularized his nickname as "fashion philosopher", Armani and he "were like day and night".
“We worked together to update the men's wardrobe, but he fell in love with a certain type of fabric that I didn't like.
I was interested in more sporty fabrics and that was the first big difference between the two”.
In addition to Armani, other renowned designers such as Narciso Rodríguez, Stefano Pilati or Umit Benan have also been trained alongside him.
Nino Cerruti poses during the opening of his boutique in Nice in 1985.RALPH GATTI (AFP)
Although his most recognized contributions were developed in the men's wardrobe, he also influenced women's style. Not only did he dress big Hollywood names like Catherine Deneuve or Faye Dunaway, he also contributed to the popularization of the female suit in the seventies, when it was still something anecdotal. And in his work as a costume designer, he created several of the most iconic garments on celluloid: from the miniskirt with which Sharon Stone had difficulty crossing her legs in
Basic Instinct
to some of Julia Roberts' famous outfits in
Pretty Woman
, to name just a few of the dozens of films in which he participated.
With the beginning of his cinematographic collaborations also came commissions to make tailored suits for male stars such as Michael Douglas, Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford.
He even became a tailor for a time for Coco Chanel herself, who declared herself an admirer of the pants she designed.
The actress Sharon Stone in one of the scenes of 'Basic Instinct'.
At the end of the 1970s, he also launched the first men's perfume linked to the brand, called Nino Cerruti, which was followed by other innovations such as the sports line, especially appreciated for clothes dedicated to tennis and skiing and worn by stars such as the American Jimmy Connors or the Swedish skier Ingemar Stenmark. The brand's popularity increased further in 1994 when it was named the official designer of the Ferrari Formula 1 team.
At the turn of the millennium, Nino Cerruti divested control of his company and sold it to a now-defunct Italian group, Fin.Part, which ended up kicking the designer out of his own label. “There was a perpetual conflict of interest”, Cerruti himself would admit later. His last collection designed for the firm was spring-summer 2002. Since then, the designer focused his efforts on the family textile business, Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti, where he held a 20% stake and served as vice president assisted by his son Silvio .
Recognized by the former president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, with the Order of Merit at Work in 2000 and considered "the most French of Italian designers", Cerruti understood before many the importance of making comfortable and easy fashion to carry
"I want men who are freer in their elegance, more elegant in their freedom," he said in a sentence that, which was once his signature, Cerruti 1881, he maintains today as a slogan in his Instagram biography.
