Sant’Angelo’s Head – WWD

Editor’s Note: Throughout this week WWD is looking back through the Fairchild Archive at some of the designers it has interviewed and profiled through the years, accompanied by photos of their collections. On Tuesday, the series features two: This Oct. 16, 1968, interview with Giorgio di Sant’Angelo in New York and a Jan. 15, 1988, interview with Patrick Kelly in Paris. (An explanation: The article has been reproduced using WWD’s style at the time, which leaned heavily toward all-capital letters, ellipses and bold-faced type.)

GIORGIO DI SANT’ANGELO’S HEAD is in everything, from rtw and accessories to hairpieces and furs.

The Renaissance man of the jet age studied with Picasso on a scholarship, was an architect in Europe and is now making bigger grooves since he won his first Coty award this year for his imaginative accessory designs.

He has expanded his operation, is doing his own rtw along with accessories. He just signed a contract to do furs for Chambers-Sherwin, purse accessories tor Whiting Davis…and is still doing scarfs for Sally Gee, gloves for Crescendoe. He’ll soon do a movie with Veruschka…he’ll act, design the clothes and the scenery. It will be filmed in January by an Italian movie company.

Giorgio settles in the chrome and black leather chair. His new sterile office is comfortably cluttered with mementos. On the desk, antique miniature frames contain photos of his family. He’s wearing a blue velvet Edwardian suit — “I designed everything myself from tie to buckled shoes.” His fingers are ringed ornately…and moving all the time as he talks about his world of fashion.

“I DON’T CONSIDER MYSELF A DESIGNER. I do a little bit of everything. Just to design clothes is not interesting. It’s to create a new total look…a new idea. I design accessory clothes…put-together clothes.

“Never one dress but things to combine, like sportswear 24 hours a day. Imaginative clothes. I detest anything that is a status symbol, that is chic or proper. I dislike the ballgown..the tea gown with the placement of the pin just so.

“I like women to look imaginative. Costume jewelry is best when it really looks fake. My clothes are sensual. They have to have sexual attraction.”

He would like to change fashion simply. “The futuristic mood and space suits are out…The simplest way…with layers is the easiest. I have worked in that concept with my wrap-around idea for day and evening. I see nylon jersey as the fabric of the future. Placement of color relating to construction is my important message.”

Giorgio digs the Seventh Avenue establishment. “S.A. created the fashions of the world. It’s filled with the greatest designers. They work side by side, from the president down to the little assistant.

“If you gave them the best fabrics, the five best tailors and seamstresses like in Paris, imagine what they could do. In Paris it works the other way around. They copy what is done in the United States the year before. St. Laurent has imagination…picks up good ideas…produces a look that is less couture.

“Clothes should be less expensive than they are. I wish I could produce my clothes inexpensively. Who has money today to spend $1,000 on an outfit? There is no necessity for them to be that
expensive…Or overdone. My clothes cost $100 to $200 and to me that is still too expensive.”

He thinks Rudi Gernreich is the best designer in America. “He has done basics and changed the look.” He also mentions Galanos…and the Grand Old Master — “We have to respect him…he is an old man. He has done a great job. I used to love Courrèges but he hasn’t done anything in the past five years.”

He claims, “I was the first to work with plastic jewelry before Paco Rabanne. I did the first square-fingered glove for Crescendoe and introduced hardware on gloves that contributed to the youth market for gloves.”

Giorgio also says he was first to put the zip into gloves with a non-irritating industrial zipper. To his credit also…colored Dynel hairpieces for Reed Meredith.

After living in the U. S. for three years, Giorgio says he wouldn’t move back to Europe or any other part of the world. “New York is the greatest city…It’s the center of art…it’s where everything is happening…an opening every night, people to meet…places to go. I love it here.”

During the summer he went to Europe [backed a small couture house] to investigate the potential of opening a European market for his accessories to be produced in the States and sold in Europe. “But when we went to the different manufacturers they already had tear sheets of my work from the magazines and were knocking them off.”

ON FASHION: “Fashion is happening on the streets. Fashion is to transport what you have in your mind. Most designers pick it up in the street and make it official. Nothing has happened in fashion since the ’20s. Furniture designs, music, art, painting was great. But since then nothing…until now.

“There is a complete revolution all the way around. in music. the arts. painting, sculpture. Designers are very involved with life. My inspiration comes from my friends…the people I surround myself with…like Veruschka. who is like a sister to me.”

ON CITYPANTS: “American women invented sportswear…invented pants. Besides, they have been around for 100 years. Some of those chichi ladies would wear them. I like the way most American women dress. Even in the Midwest, when they are corny they are corny all the way.”

ON NUDITY: “I think baring some of the body is good but what St. Laurent is doing I don’t like. How many women can go without a bra today? Nudity with a certain mysteriousness is sensuous. Plain nudity doesn’t do a thing. I was the first to walk around with my shirt open to my pants.”

ON DRUGS: “I was born stoned. Maybe the kids today have discovered themselves with drugs, but not me. I don’t use any. I had my problems when I was a youngster. I took a sleeping cure in Switzerland…for 15 days I was asleep. They feed you intravenously. I had to do it for complete relaxation.

“When I woke up I felt as though I was reborn. My parents do it every year. Of course, it can’t be done in America. It is illegal here but it was very good. Marijuana is all right for anyone who needs some acceleration, but I don’t need any.”