Emanuel Ungaro | |
|---|---|
 Emanuel Ungaro in 2009 | |
| Born | 13 February 1933 Aix-en-Provence, France |
| Died | 21 December 2019 (aged 86) Paris, France |
| Label | House of Emanuel Ungaro |
| Awards | Legion d'Honneur |
| Website | www.ungaro.com |
Emanuel Ungaro (13 February 1933 – 21 December 2019) was a French fashion designer who founded his eponymous fashion house in 1965.
Ungaro's Italian father fled to France from Francavilla Fontana of Brindisi province because of the fascist dictatorship in Italy. Ungaro's father was a tailor and he gave his son a sewing machine when he was young.
At the age of 22, Ungaro moved to Paris. Three years later he began designing for the House of Cristóbal Balenciaga for three years before quitting to work for Courrèges. Four years later, in 1965 with the assistance of Swiss artist Sonja Knapp and Elena Bruna Fassio, Ungaro opened his own fashion house in Paris. The opening came while Courrèges was at the peak of his success but on hiatus and Ungaro's similar style gained him immediate followers.
During the mid- to late 1960s, Ungaro was known as one of the Space Age designers, alongside Andre Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, Paco Rabanne, Rudi Gernreich, Jean-Marie Armand, and Diana Dew, creating ultra-modern, futuristic clothing of stark simplicity consisting of flaring, mini-length garments of geometric shape in welt-seamed double-faced wools, synthetics, plastics, and metals worn with high boots, helmets, visors, and chrome and plastic jewelry. Sonia Knapp designed his prints, footwear was provided by Roger Vivier, and hair was styled by Vidal Sassoon and Alexandre. He was known for including shorts with his minidresses to make mini lengths easier to wear. His designs were said to be strongly influenced by former employer Courrèges, a claim Ungaro contested, saying that he and Courrèges merely shared an esthetic sense derived from their training at Balenciaga. He was one of a small number of designers, Courrèges among them, who continued to show futuristic Space Age styles for several years after other designers had given them up.
His womenswear designs of the 1970s were noted for their exuberant mixing of Sonia Knapp's colorful prints. In the year 1970, he moved away from his long-held Space Age styles and adopted the longer, looser, more flowing look that had been burgeoning among the fashion-conscious since the late sixties. He helped instigate the decade's characteristic layered look in 1971 before settling in to the voluminous, layered, peasant-based styles known as the Big Look or Soft Look that dominated high fashion from 1974 to 1978. Ungaro's print mixtures fit well into the period's multi-layer esthetic. The raincoats he produced during the seventies were widely admired as well.
In the late 1970s, fashion journalist Michael Roberts, when opening a Sunday column in The Times, said "Emanuel Ungaro has a great charm. He wears it around his neck."
Ungaro would see unprecedented fame in the 1980s. While his talent was recognized in the 1970s, fashion observers felt that he hadn't yet found a signature style but that, if he ever did, he could become one of the biggest names in Paris. The vehicle for such a rise came with the fashion industry's Fall 1978 revival of big shoulders, narrow skirts, and, particularly relevant for Ungaro's future, 1940s-style shirring. Ungaro wouldn't immediately take up these revived proportions, but during the eighties he would reach a pinnacle of success and influence with his versions of the look, as he interpreted the era's aggressive, broad-shouldered women's silhouette with Edwardian-style shirring and draping and his trademark eye-catching prints to create a voluptuous, very feminine, even coquettish look that was highly popular with the public. He cited Beethoven string quartets as inspiring his work during this period.
French actress Anouk Aimée was a longtime friend and inspiration to Ungaro, who spoke of her as a personal muse and featured her in advertising campaigns during the 1980s.
Ungaro launched his first menswear collection, Ungaro Uomo, in 1973, and his first perfume, Diva, 10 years later in 1983. Ungaro was a participant in The Battle of Versailles Fashion Show held on 28 November 1973. Later followed the perfumes Senso (1987), Ungaro (1991) and Emanuel Ungaro For Men (1991).
By 1989, Ungaro was producing two haute couture collections a year, two women's ready-to-wear (labelled "Parallèle", begun in 1971), as well as lower-priced diffusion lines "Ter" (1988 to 1991) and "Solo Donna". That year a scholarship was funded in his name at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, endowed by Marshall Field's in recognition of his legacy as a designer.
Menswear lines included "Classics by Ungaro" and "Ungaro pour l'Homme Paris". Lines not designed by Ungaro himself included "Emanuel by Emanuel Ungaro", a women's line introduced specifically for the US market in 1991, "Emanuel Petite" in 1994, and "Ungaro Woman", a plus-size line added in 1996.
In 1996, he formed a partnership with Salvatore Ferragamo. In Ungaro's obituary, The Guardian notes that his 30 years without outside investment ending in 1996 made him "the last independent in Paris":
Lack of funding shaped his own business. In 1968, he added ready-to-wear, sold at first from his salon on the Avenue Montaigne, then distributed in the US and Japan, for a reliable revenue stream to help support his couture without pursuing the licensing deals that had become standard for couturiers. He profited only from what his house directly made, not from selling the name to producers whose output quality he could not control.
In 1997, Ungaro, Ferragamo and Bulgari created a new company: Emanuel Ungaro Parfums. The new perfumes to follow were Fleur de Diva (1997), Desnuda (2001) and Apparition (2004).
Giambattista Valli worked as Creative Director for Ungaro from 1998 to 2004. Ungaro credited Valli with revitalizing the house, and named him as his successor. In a tribute after Ungaro's death, Valli was quoted by Vogue as saying "He was one of the big masters of haute couture, with a very personal kind of universe.... We worked in parallel a lot, he on the haute couture, and me on the ready-to-wear. For seven years I learned a lot from him. He was not listening to critics, just his own dreams and obsessions."
In 2005, Ungaro retired and Gruppo Ferragamo sold the label to internet entrepreneur Asim Abdullah for US$84 million.
After the sale, the label languished with a revolving door of designers – Vincent Darré and Peter Dundas –, the last of which, Esteban Cortazar, who was appointed in 2007, was fired two years later after his refusal to work with actress Lindsay Lohan. Subsequently, Lohan was appointed Artistic Director, working with new head designer Estrella Archs, who was hired hastily to replace Cortazar. The introduction of Lohan, which was meant to give the label publicity, was received with shock and dismay in Paris Fashion Week 2009. In 2010, during Paris Fashion Week, Lohan announced that she was no longer working for or with Ungaro, and that she could not comment on the matter because of legal issues. Her work was heavily criticized and soon after the fashion house was looking for a buyer.
In 2009, the label had sales of about $200 million from fragrance and less-expensive lines sold in Asia, but the runway collection has been losing money for years.
In April 2010, it was announced that Archs had been dismissed and British designer Giles Deacon would be taking over as creative director.
In 2012, Italian company Aeffe took over the production and distribution of Ungaro products. In September 2012, Fausto Puglisi was named creative director of Ungaro, and the brand announced its comeback to the Paris Fashion Week. In 2015, Ungaro launched a smart ring that, connected to a phone, vibrates discreetly instead of lighting up when one exclusive contact calls. In March 2017, Fausto Puglisi was replaced by Marco Colagrossi (formerly women's wear at Giorgio Armani) as creative director of Ungaro.
In 2025, Puck reported that American-stylist Law Roach and a group of financial backers are preparing to purchase the house from Abdullah.
In 2008, Avon and Emanuel Ungaro collaborated to launch a new duo of fragrances, U by Ungaro for Her and U by Ungaro for Him. Actress Reese Witherspoon served as the scents' spokeswoman.
In 1988, Ungaro married Laura Bernabei. He has a daughter, Cosima Ungaro, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, but her birthdate has been kept a secret.
Ungaro died in December 2019 at the age of 86. He had reportedly been ill for two years previous.
...Ungaro...was a fitter for André Courrèges and then...opened his own couture house just when Courrèges shut his...
Courrèges showed no collection this season, but his impact was visible everywhere: the traditional 'little black dress' has gone mostly white. At left is low-pocketed version by new couturier, [Em]anuel Ungaro...[Em]anuel Ungaro...showed only 27 outfits but...made a solid hit.
Emanuel Ungaro is this season's successor to Courrèges...
Emanuel Ungaro...advocate of clean-cut tailoring and space-age fashions...
...the false eyelashes, silver metallic wig and frosted pink lips of...Ungaro's space girl...
...Courrèges, Rabanne and Ungaro...refused to give up the long-legged, short-skirted mode.
I...begged [Ungaro] to decode the enigma of space-age chic and to explain why he, of all people, abandoned the cause. 'Ze space-age look was very short-lived. It was not comfortable...,' said the couturier....'Courrèges et moi...work[ed] for Balenciaga....Balenciaga was obsessed with cut and structure and architecture....[W]e chop 20 centimeters off the skirt, and, voila, le space age'.
Any Ungaro follower would have quickly recognized the familiar touches — lots and lots of flapped patch pockets on coats and suits; welt seaming, and rounded, set‐apart collars or loopy, notched lapels.
...[Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild] is wearing an Ungaro...very short flared skirt in...blotchy printed woolens, gray, pale blue, and white, with a dark gray ribbed sweater top, the all-in-one underwear type.
...the metalworks of Ungaro –...bell-bottoms...in silver and hyacinth-blue[,]...wig made of curly aluminum shavings...
The body ornamented in burnished brass, by Oscar Gustin for Ungaro. [Somewhat tribal-looking brass body sculpture forming a solid metal micromini decorated with gestural filigree work and glossy opalescent stones, hanging from thin lines of brass that start as a necklace, extend in a line between the breasts, and expand into a filigree peace sign across the abdominal wall.]
The cotton poplin coat..in palest taupey beige – wide and short, banded all around in white kid, with white kid epaulettes, giant white kid scallops buttoned to the side. Worn with...thigh-high white boots. All by Ungaro.
Ungaro...with 'another leap into space' – Here, his yolk yellow canvas coat, blue pleat dress, and thigh-high Vinyl boots.
Ungaro picks a daisy...The daisy queen,...head over heels in St. Gall embroidery, helmet, bodice, shorts, kilt, boots...[High-necked, sleeveless top; open-sided miniskirt, evidently over shorts of the same or slightly shorter length; close-fitting, bonnet-like helmet; and Courrèges-ish flat boots to the calf, all seemingly comprised of a tile-like network of Erigeron-like white daisies, each about as big as an open mouth.]
Printed fabrics,...Sonia Knapp designs for Nattier.
Ungaro's...small dress with square armholes, all mirror-rectangles of silvery plastic framed in ruched white grosgrain ribbon,...silver...Roger Vivier shoes.
Roger Vivier shows new boot he designed for Emanuel Ungaro...It is white leather with silver strip at top that unclasps like a bracelet.
...Vidal Sassoon...cut the hair...of the Ungaro mannequins in Paris...
...wig made...by Alexandre for Ungaro.
His favorite theme — dresses worn over...shorts...— dominated the collection...Now that all of the Paris couture is suddenly showing so many...shorts, Ungaro should have the credit for creating the look. He showed shorts in his first collection in July, 1965, and Bermudas are always visible beneath the hem of a dress or coat.
Courrèges...did not show a collection in the fall, but his former associate Ungaro worked the same vein.
...Ungaro's adaptation of Andre Courrèges's ideas always look like a photograph slightly out of focus. He has a new squared silver boot designed by Roger Vivier, and the models...wear a silvery nylon...wig...
...Ungaro's collection...copies the rounder seams, scallops, pleats and oval shapes seen six months ago...chez Courrèges...
...[H]is...geometric A-line dresses...somehow always evoke memories of André Courrèges. One of the things not to do around Ungaro is to suggest that perhaps he never quite cut the cord with Courrèges....'That is ridiculous,' he retorted. '...We both worked and studied under Balenciaga, so naturally we are going to have similar translations'.
...Princess Ira Fürstenberg...is...planning to...build a whole new fashion life based mainly on Courrèges and Ungaro...
Ungaro's decline is partially due to a big shift in direction by French fashion. The Paris collections showed softer, sweeter and certainly more romantic-looking clothes than those seen six months ago. Ungaro's look too harsh.
He mixes up fast assortments of polka dots, stripes and simple, child‐like flowers in the same outfit, the way Creole women do, or joyful peasants anywhere. It goes like this: flowered shirt, striped pullover, dotted pants.
He mixes colors and patterns with a painter's eye....Ungaro never misses. His checks, squares and circles go together beautifully.
His prints have always been exceptional and, as usual, he alternates between geometric stripes, checks and plaids on the one hand and delicate flowers on the other.
Art Nouveau flowers at Ungaro – sketched in loose, swirly ink-purple lines on silvered white crêpe, a dress...all fall and flow, all languor and softness...the new romanticism at Ungaro. Print designed by Sonia Knapp for Nattier.
An important trend that Paris couturier Emanuel Ungaro helped launch...was the layered look of garment over garment...
Everything Ungaro makes is layered....Each layer...looks terrific...on its own....A joy of colors unmatched and unexpected...pattern played against pattern without clashing...
...Ungaro...has the voluminous look, the long sweaters, the flowered skirts and the Cossack boots that constitute the main fashion news at the moment.
Long skirts have been pretty much accepted in European fashion circles for six months or so, but even in European fashion circles, Emanuel Ungaro's are a bit extreme. They usually stop at the middle of the calf, or descend even longer. He generally pairs them with loose, smock‐like tops and the skirts themselves are rather voluminous.
The pile‐it‐on movement is in high gear over at...Emanuel Ungaro...Among his most majestic layerings were a raincoat over a tweedy coatdress over a silk dress....[C]oats topped two print dresses, worn one over the other. More familiar layerings involved sweaters, battle‐jackets and pants or skirt....Hemlines were an inch or so longer than most [US] fashions.
Ungaro['s]...peasants romp around in quilted jackets, pleated skirts and loose tunics...
Ungaro concentrated on pretty flowered clothes, very soft and summery.... Everything was big and billowy...
[Ungaro's] layers are...in the lightest weight woolens in muted shades of beige or gray. The patterns don't match exactly; they blend.
Emanuel Ungaro...is known for his raincoats...
Famous for his raincoats, Ungaro's latest is lined in curly, white fake lamb.
Emanuel Ungaro...has never become a household word...Many feel when he finds his style he will be a pillar of Paris.
Shoulder pads were resurrected, as were...severe, tailored business suits...Also revived...were...bust darts, midriff seams, drop-dead Hollywood-style shirring...
Emanuel Ungaro...has sent...advance hints of his styles for next fall....Ungaro uses [a brushed silk shirt] as part of a layering plan that involves a matching vest. a skirt in the same fabric but a blending print, and a couple of sweaters....But Mr. Ungaro hasn't forgotten about dresses. One of the prettiest a loose style in flowery wool challis...
Ungaro['s] jackets had...peplums and...puffy shoulders.
Ungaro is responsible for this season's dominant dress shape: tightly draped through the torso and flounced a bit at the hem.
...Ungaro was continuing to drape dresses and cut suits, giving his designs an international influence greater than any other Paris couturier.
Karl Lagerfeld..., Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro and Hubert de Givenchy...continued with their versions of the rather aggressive broad-shouldered silhouette...
As for Emanuel Ungaro, nothing is quite so seductive as a skinny sheath tucked under a big-shouldered jacket or coat. 'It is this contrast of wide on narrow that I love,' he says.
...[J]ackets tend to have large rippling lapels as well as very broad shoulders and peplums over the hips.
Emanuel Ungaro's updated, sexy Edwardian clothes...
Ungaro's draped Proustian look, updated with above-the-knee hemlines, looked sexy or old-fashioned, depending on the point of view...
Emanuel Ungaro, who started the bodice-shirring trend two years ago [1983], continues to refine this look that's now being copied all over the world. As anyone who's ever worn one of these drape-front dresses can tell you, the shirring allows freedom of movement in even the narrowest of dresses.
The seductively draped dress...is Ungaro's signature...
...[S]ays Ungaro,...'I am always working to develop a liquid line in drapery that enhances true feminine sensuality'.
Emanuel Ungaro['s]...designs display a burning desire for draping the body in search of perfect beauty.
Emanuel Ungaro is as responsible as anyone for the current tendency to mix one glorious material with another - or with five or six more - in the same design. His astonishing medleys of satin, lace and wool, or of several different prints in the same outfit, have brought him acclaim. His fabric mixes have also spurred other designers to follow suit.
'Voluptuousness is a feeling appearing throughout my fall [1980] couture clothes,' says Emanuel Ungaro. 'I like to play it up with small hips and strong shoulders'.
...Ungaro's curvaceous provocations reached a peak in slender 'little nothing' draped dresses.
[A]t the Emanuel Ungaro show...models sauntered down the runway in short silk satin dresses, in myriad prints, all draped to the body. They were seductive dresses, a bit too suggestive...
[M]any people know Ungaro because it was prominent in the '80s and '90s. If you were a snooty boutique owner in Dallas or New York and you couldn't sell an Ungaro dress with the drapery pouring over the breasts and thighs like butter on a hot ear of corn, you had no business being in retail. Men loved a woman in an Ungaro dress, it was said, because the style and the vibrant colors made them imagine what she had on underneath...
The hot collection of the season is that of Emanuel Ungaro...Americans are now flocking to his salon, not only to see the clothes, but to buy them. Even the French agree that his are the most satisfactory...
Ungaro had been listening to Beethoven's string quartets every morning for several years....'I am so impressed by the mental structure that is the shape of these quartets...I am trying to find the same harmony, the same structure. I am trying to make a collection like one of these quartets'.
French filmstar Anouk Aimee...captures for Emanuel Ungaro the essence of Ungaro women – elegance, mystery, humor, seduction.
The personification of th[e] ideal [woman] Ungaro has in mind is Anouk Aimée, who now appears in advertisements as the official image of the house.
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