IN THE MAGAZINE

DRINKING MILAN - PART 2

Renata Molho Remembers When Italy Was Fashionable

INTERVIEW BY FEDERICO SARICA
TRANSLATED BY TIM SMALL

OK, so there was an economic collapse in Milan in 1992, but it is also true that the great characters of the past don’t exist anymore. It seems to me like a lot of people in the fashion industry today are quite incompetent. Everybody has a degree from these so-called fashion institutes that I don’t think even existed in the 80s.

These schools today are pretty useless. They are very theoretical. What do you need theory for? Nothing. What you need is experience, to have lived and seen and done other things in life. I taught for a while and I used to tell my students: “Seeing one picture by Chagall is much more important than reading all the issues of Vogue ever published.”

I didn’t go to any fashion school. I used to draw and write of my own accord, and I entered this world in a very casual manner. And yet, the first job I was offered from the agency was a street casting for a campaign by Oliviero Toscani. You know? I just walked in, they handed me a huge Polaroid camera, patted me on the back, and said, “Go.” And I walked around Milan photographing people. They liked it so much that two days later they had me do the styling for a shoot by Avi Meroz, a great photographer who is unfortunately not being talked much about these days. Together with Gastel and Ferri and company, they did all the biggest ad campaigns in the 80s.

Weren’t you scared? I mean, you literally had no experience.

Of course. I was terrified. They threw me in the deep end. But everybody was way less self-conscious then. I arrived on the set with a huge Samsonite suitcase filled with clothes, without any clue what to do with them. They told me only two things: “First, when you don’t know what to do, have them wear black stockings. Second, use your brain.” I started from there, and thank God, I’m still here.

What was your relationship with all these big-shot photographers? Did they look down on an inexperienced girl?

I remember my first interaction with Avi Meroz. He told me, “Renata, we need a hat. A hat. Do you have a hat?” I had no hat. I panicked. I freaked out, looking for a hat. Then the hair and makeup guy, Antonio, came to the rescue. He knew it was my first big job, so he told me, “Look him straight in the eye and tell him that a hat wouldn’t look good.” And I did that. And Avi believed me. So there was a hierarchy, but there was an egalitarianism, a freshness whereby everybody’s word could be taken. I still think about Antonio and what he said that day. He was a fantastic man and a talented artist. He died of AIDS.

As many others did.

So many. It was a massacre. In hindsight, it was maybe the first big ax that came down on us, annihilating those dreams of omnipotence that fueled our work. It was crazy. Imagine this constant influx of boys who came to Milan from the country, where they lived with their parents in a small house, and a few weeks later they were guests of honor at the Ritz. They couldn’t understand it. It was a whirlwind. There was no information about AIDS and there were no scruples or limits. It was a nonstop party that soon became a bloodbath.

Did many of your friends fall victim to AIDS?

I remember my favorite makeup artist, Giuseppe Ciulla. He was a sweet boy. In a different time he could have come to Milan, become a mechanic, and married a sweet, chubby girl and maybe have had a few issues with his identity—the same ones we all have. But at that time things went differently. He was thrust into this world and he lost his mind. He was such a sweet, bright, enthusiastic, insecure boy. Everybody wanted to tell him to be careful. I saw him change from one week to the next, and it was ghastly. He slowly died over three years. It was so sad.

Something that strikes me about you is your history as a freelancer. Even when you edited Vogue Italia, you only stayed a short while in the office.

I stayed at Vogue for three years. Then I decided to leave and collaborate externally. I have always had a lot of respect for Franca (Sozzani, chief editor of Condé Nast Italy), but, knowing myself, I would have ended up fighting with her constantly. Instead, working from outside, I can have excellent relations with her. Honestly, I am not a desk person, I like having my independence. Obviously, if someone called me and asked me to make my own magazine, with my own team, I would enjoy that. But it has never happened. I have always been asked to direct magazines that are already “done” and, frankly, there doesn’t exist a magazine that I completely identify with.

You wrote the only biography on Armani. How was that?

It was a beautiful experience. Besides the fact that it was Armani, I enjoyed writing a biography. The more you learn about an interesting character, the more you love him or her. That’s why I hope to never have to write a bio of, I don’t know, a Nazi lieutenant.

Did Armani approve the project?

Not to begin with. Everybody who knows his hard, reserved nature asked me if I wasn’t afraid. In my audacity, I was calm. In fact, when he realized that I was going ahead with the project, he opened his archives to me, both the photographic and the written ones. That was wonderful research. In the end, he was full of compliments, and he’s not a man known for giving out kind words.

Yes. And how do you think of him now? He’s always shunned the spotlight.

Studying him and talking to all the people in his life, I think I managed to understand the reasoning behind some of his actions. There’s a telling episode in his life. When his life partner, Sergio Galeotti, died, the only daily that mentioned AIDS was Rome’s Messaggero. Immediately after that, Armani canceled his advertising account with that paper. It became something of a media scandal. Researching him as a person, I see that as an act of love aimed at the preservation of a man’s dignity rather than an act of spite.

One of the best things in the book is how you manage to frame a historical period through one character. You really get that sense of how all things were possible in those years. You read it and realize, “Oh, OK, so this is how Armani became Armani, this is who he was before he became what he is now.”

Yes, I am very satisfied with that part of the book. Think about the episode involving the cover of Time magazine. An American writer discovers Armani’s clothes, decides to fly to Milan to interview him, the editor loves the story, and gives it the cover. Of Time magazine. The Armani myth crossed the ocean.

So if I were to ask you if a new Armani could be born today, what would you say?

My reply would be simple. It won’t happen.


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