The Poetic Fashion of Pino Lancetti

Haute Couture Fantasies, 1975

Alongside the profile and editorial on Yves Saint Laurent’s designs in Libera’s 1975 spring fashion issue I discussed last week, the other major designer portfolio is on the Italian designer Pino Lancetti. The clothes and the textiles are so beautiful (just look at that dress below!), I felt I had to share the photos and some background on the designer the Italian fashion press called “"il sarto pittore" or "the tailor painter.”

“The common denominator of Pino Lancetti are the impressionist colors. The very wide skirt, flowery, colorful. The blouse gathered at the neckline. Etoile fabric.” Photographed by Roberto Rocchi, Libera, March 1975.

Born in the Umbrian village of Gualdo Tadino in 1928 or 1932, Lancetti studied art at the second oldest art school in the world, the Accademia San Bernardino di Betto in Perugia, founded in 1573. Originally, he planned to go into ceramics (the specialty of his hometown) and then into painting, Lancetti found he had a talent for fashion. When he moved to Rome in 1954, Lancetti set up a small atelier where he sold croquis to designers like the Fontana sisters and Contessa Simonetti Visconti. He was then hired in-house as a designer for “two seasons at De Luca (suit specialist), three at Carosa (morning and evening wear for an aristocratic and diplomatic clientele) and two at Aris” [a new couture house sponsored by the Ariston fabric company], all of which gave him a “solid couture preparation,” leading him to establish his own house in 1961.

Pino Lancetti. Photographed by Roberto Rocchi, Libera, March 1975.