Capucci's story is well-known among fashion and lifestyle experts and enthusiasts. Born in Rome in 1930, Capucci officially made his debut in Florence during the earliest fashion shows organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini and launched on 12 February 1951, on the occasion of an event in the family villa, in the heart of the city. Capucci's myth had started: his were no mere haute couture clothes or dresses relying on precious fabrics for Hollywood stars, Roman aristocracy and members of the international jet set, but real sculptures, extraordinary textile architectures to be worn. Ever since the 1980s, he was a precursor of modernity: his clothes were admired and caused a great sensation, featured on catwalks worldwide and in the most important museums and art institutions, from Rome's Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna to Berlin's Schauspielhaus, from Florence's Palazzo Strozzi to Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, up to Venice's Biennale d'Arte.
A unique path: from art to top quality craftsmanship, spanning 70 years' uninterrupted activity, the Master's entire career is an epitome of exceptional savoir-faire. To this day, his creativity emerges dramatically, rich in visionary suggestions, especially in his drawings, which the book presents in a fascinatingly beautiful selection (“the Alpha and Omega of each of my creations” in the Master's words), fully testifying to Capucci's passion for shapes, colours, materials, as well as art and nature, his unfailing sources of inspiration. Thanks to the thorough and passionate reconstruction by Gian Luca Bauzano, an authoritative journalist from Corriere della Sera, a researcher and a fashion, custom, and music curator, as well as a long-time friend and close connoisseur of Capucci's life and works, the book compellingly conjures up a fascinating, mostly unprecedented portrait of a great artist and craftsman: an actual “Living Treasure”, as great Art Masters are poetically defined in the Japanese language, protecting and safeguarding their works as an essential artistic and cultural heritage.
The Author offers an emotional narrative, interwoven with personal memories and feelings, intriguingly winding through the beautiful images of Capucci's most famous clothes and drawings, deriving from the incredible corpus of mostly unpublished signed works.
A book primarily aiming at offering a tribute to an excellence creator who was and still is a glory for our country, but also “a sort of poetic manual for young artists” in Franco Cologni's words: “Roberto Capucci, a refined interpreter of Italy's high-end craft, wrote down words which today's young people should memorise: art, crafts, talent, competence, work, vision, courage, and beauty”.
