△ Piero Tosi
As a ardent lover of film and television costumes, when I learned of the death of The Italian costume designer Piero Tosi, the feeling that "a glorious era is gone" really came to mind.
Pierrot may not be well known today, but he is recognized as the pinnacle of the industry, especially in the field of costumes. Every film and stage play in which he designed costumes is amazing. His collaborations with legendary directors Lucchino Visconti, Pierre Pasolini, Franco Zefirelli and others have enabled him to contribute a series of classics. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume five times and became the first costume designer to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
Since childhood, Pierrot has fallen in love with movies. The gorgeous costumes and sets in Hollywood song and dance films fascinated him, allowing him to temporarily escape from that war-torn era and enter a world full of beauty and dreams. Since then, Pierrot has decided the direction of his life.
△ In 2015, at the exhibition "I Vestiti Dei Sogni", Pierrot looked at his former works. Photo/Visual China
Pierrot's career can be said to be a combination of talent and good luck. In 1948, Pierrot, in his early twenties, was looking for an opportunity in Florence. The young man with great power immediately made good luck – the famous director Lucchino Visconti came to Florence to direct a play. At this time, the famous director Franco Zeffirelli, who was already familiar with Pierrot (representative works: 68 editions of Romeo and Juliet, 81 editions of "La Traviata", 96 editions of "Jane Eyre", etc.), introduced him to visconti's crew as an assistant designer, and he immediately agreed, and took this step towards glory.
From the very beginning, Pierrot showed his seriousness and respect for the times. At that time, the prevailing Hollywood fancy style of combining costumes and fashion senses, rarely respecting the design of history, and Pierrot did not intend to follow the trend, preferring to present the real historical style. He actively conveyed his ideas to Visconti, and the two coincided. The discerning Visconti soon put Pierrot in a more dominant role in his new work, and the latter immediately proved his ability to fully grasp a project.
In 1954, after two successful collaborations, Piero participated in Visconti's costume masterpiece, Sengoku Youji.
△ The costumes of the characters other than the protagonist in "Sengoku Demon Hime" are all written by Pierrot
It is a story of a disastrous emotional entanglement between a Venetian noblewoman and an Austrian soldier. The main designer was Marcel Escoffier, the famous costume artist of the time, and Piero, as the second in command, designed the mass costumes. The film immediately presents a clear sense of difference, accustomed to the old-fashioned design of Marcel's finished product is very shiny and complicated, while Pierrot's design is more historical, more visconti's heart. After that, Visconti decided to entrust his costume films to Pierrot.
In 1963, the two ushered in their peak cooperation, the costume giant "Leopard", an elegy of the decline of the times. The story tells that in the process of Italian unification in 1860, a Sicily prince witnessed the collapse of the old world, and the new upstarts and speculators who were like wolves replaced the old nobles who were as noble and elegant as leopards in the tide of the times.
△ Stills from "Leopard"
Visconti, who came from a large aristocratic family, has always spent money "lavishly", and has laid down a bloody money for this film, regardless of whether to restore the old world of the past (he even made a closed old brick and tile factory reopen for the original set and made an antique floor tile that meets the requirements). Pierrot, the master designer of this unparalleled masterpiece, has received huge funds and comprehensive support to fully exert his superhuman control over the texture, color and pattern of the fabric to create a spectacle.
In the final hour of the film, hundreds of extremely well-documented and exquisite large dresses dance, and their magnificence and magnificence are stunned no matter how many times they are seen, and the perfect sense of the times becomes an eternal benchmark (in my opinion, only "Titanic" can be compared in the same kind of works). I still can't think of how Pierrot accomplished this nearly impossible task.
△ The white dress worn by the heroine in the final dance scene
At the age of 35, Pierrot climbed to a peak that no one could match. At this time, his personal philosophy was also fully formed. As he later said in an interview: "I think an actor's costume must truly reflect the character's life. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the background of the era set by the film and to delve into the traditions of the time. ”
Relying on "Leopard", Pierrot was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume for the first time. For now, the film would undoubtedly win, but in that era of famous works, it was unfortunate to meet Cleopatra, and the judges preferred the shiny latter.
In 1969, Piero collaborated with Visconti on the period film Nazi Mania, a crazy story of a family in a Nazi background in the 1930s. Pierrot, who has already experienced "Leopard", is very familiar with this and easily came up with a masterpiece. The smooth and graceful 1930s dresses in the film are very pleasing to the eye.
△ Stills from "Nazi Mania"
In the same year, Pierre Pasolini and the soprano Maria Callas filmed the classical tragedy Medea, in which Piero was asked to compose the exotic and barbaric costumes. Karas's passionate performance has been elevated to a higher level by her costume, and the exaggerated and bizarre forms and the decorative techniques of the classical era style have a strong shock to the audience. Pierrot proved that he can not only restore the era, but also surpass the aesthetic power of the times.
△ Costume of "Medea" in the exhibition of pitti Palace in Florence
In 1971, the combination of Visconti and Pierrot produced a new work, this time a famous work that explores psychology, emotion, beauty and death, "Soul Breaking Venice". The story takes place in 1911, when the composer Assenbach comes to Venice to escape his inner pain, and is strongly attracted by a polish teenager who looks like an angel. He was irrepressibly overwhelmed by his beauty, and followed the teenager like a sleepwalker until he accidentally fell ill with cholera and died.
In this smaller story, Pierrot's style tends to be more detailed and elegant, with a touch of obscurity and sorrow. The purity and subtle sexiness of his design for teenagers, the conservative suits of the male protagonist who suppress fanaticism, and the sculptural costumes of the young mothers all skillfully fit every spiritual detail of the work. Of course, the style is still considerate to an astonishing degree.
△ "Soul Break Venice" The costume of a Chinese and American teenager
△ The male protagonist's conservative suit
The film was nominated for the 44th Academy Award for Best Costume, but unfortunately encountered the gorgeous court masterpiece "The Secret History of the Russian Palace" and failed again.
In 1973, another masterpiece designed by Pierrot was released. Visconti's long-simmering biopic Ludwig, starring his muse, Helmut Berg, and the fourth appearance of Romi Schneider as Princess Sisi, tells the story of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who loves art, is incompetent in his career, and suffers from emotional struggles.
△ Stills from "Ludwig"
The film does not have the big scenes of "Leopard", but its costumes also cost Piero a huge amount of effort. In this story with a large time span, he must accurately make the characters have the correct shape every time they appear, grasp the temperament of the costumes of different eras, and at the same time form a unity in the entire film, which is very difficult. But the big god is the big god, and Pierrot did a very good job. He once made it clear: "If makeup and hairstyles are not done right, then clothing is not successful." ”
In addition, he and Visconti's costless forensic habits reappear in the film. The ancient nobles of the West had to wear palace clothes with huge dresses and tails on court ceremonial occasions, because this must have cost a lot, and basically few costume plays dared to do. At Ludwig's coronation at the beginning of the film, the nobles present all wore red velvet, embroidered with gold thread, and stoat-trimmed tails and cloaks. When I first watched this film, the luxurious atmosphere of this scene almost rushed out of the screen and made me throw myself to the ground. And this period is actually not long, so a large number of luxurious dresses will appear for a few minutes...
△ The luxurious robe in Ludwig
The film won the 46th Academy Award for Best Costume, but lost to "Deception within Deception". If the first two defeats can be said to be too strong opponents, this time it is really a pity. Although the costumes of "Deception within Deception" are good, they are still relatively ordinary as a modern drama, and they do not have the strength to beat Ludwig. However, the film was a big winner of various awards that year, and basically at this time, the awards were more famous.
By this time Piero's Bó Lè and its biggest supporter, Visconti, were at the end of their lives. In 1976, the two collaborated on their last film, Visconti's finale, Innocent. The story of this film that took place in the early 1890s is gorgeous and moving, but the core is full of decay, focusing on the boring disillusionment of a wandering, lust-obsessed, proud and boring aristocratic son, which is a helpless sigh at the end of the old world.
△ Stills of "Innocent"
Unlike the previous design of the costumes, which are mostly softer and purer tones, this time Pierrot's design is very intense, and the overly rich style constantly permeates the decay and depression like a century-old house. The costumes of the film are quite gorgeous, but the gloomy atmosphere is too strong, which makes people feel deeply uncomfortable, and the style of the perfect restoration era seems to drag the audience into the old. Pierrot's ability to use costumes to mobilize the audience's feelings is already pure fire.
In 1977, Pierrot designed Nietzsche's biopic The Other Side of Good and Evil, which was minimalist in color, basically a large black, white and gray, occasionally embellished with a little color, and the costume did not require much decoration. Pierre's work rarely has this type, and it can be said that he had to put down some of the techniques he was best at when facing the work. And he still played a consistent seriousness, even if he only made a basic form, he still handed over the most elegant works that were considered and within the scope of the requirements.
△ Stills of "The Other Side of Good and Evil"
In 1978, Piero was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume for an unexpected work. The French film "A Cage of Silly Birds", a hilarious gay family comedy. Pierrot is very serious when he makes costumes, but when he makes this bright and noisy modern story, he is also quite open, playing with all kinds of contrast colors and nightclub style, showing off the sky.
△ Stills of "A Cage of Silly Birds"
In fact, Piero's modern backstory is also full of designs that are either cheerful or sexy, such as his 1963 collaboration with Sophia Roland and Marcelo Mastruani in "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow", which is warm and sexy.
However, "A Cage of Silly Birds" still ran with it, because it bumped into the more superior song and dance film "Jazz Spring and Autumn". I have to say that Pierrot's professional luck is excellent, but the luck of winning the prize is really a bit back.
Later in his career, Pierrot still had a lot of brilliant costume works. The most famous is that he designed two consecutive editions of "La Traviata" in 1981 and 1982, with exactly the same era background and story, basically the same clothing style, but he can make two very different styles.
The 1981 version of La Traviata was starred by Isabelle Huppel. The clothes Pierrot designed for her have a strong sense of history, peaceful, gentle and a little fragile.
△ Stills of the 81st edition of "La Traviata"
In 1982, Franco Zefferelli's opera version of "La Traviata" incorporated a lot of stage style brightness in the texture, decoration and tone, which was more ostentatious and in line with its opera theme.
△ Stills from the 82nd edition of "La Traviata"
The film was nominated for the 55th Academy Award for Best Costume, but unfortunately it happened to run into the "Biography of Gandhi" that year's fire, and ran with it again. In this regard, Piero Tosi, a master of clothing, was shortlisted for five Olympiad awards. Many people, especially costume lovers, are deeply dissatisfied with this and have made a lot of speculations. One of the common sayings is that Pierrot's life and career are too small to go abroad, so most of his works stop at Italian films and do not develop into the vast world of Hollywood. This greatly limited his influence, seeing him as a foreign designer in a remote location in the eyes of a wider English-speaking audience and critics. This statement may not necessarily be accurate, but such cases do exist. Several of Piero's disciples who actively developed into English films received more honors and influence.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Piero grew older, and with the addition of his work in stage plays, his film and television works were few. His last of his more important costume films was in 1993's Sparrow with Franco Zeferelli, about a girl in Sicily who was struggling to choose between secular and religious in the 1850s, who embarked on a sad ending in a hopeless love.
△ Stills of "Sparrow"
This film is not well known, but there is one thing that makes it quite interesting. That is to say, the costumes in this film are too elaborate, and as a result, they are often used as real antique clothes, and even many people think that these are museum collections. This is a well-known joke in costume lovers circles.
△ This dress from "Sparrow" is always regarded as an antique
In addition to film and television, Pierrot is also the god of the stage theater circle. One of his most famous stage works is Don Carlos (1996), a late sixteenth-century tragedy of the Spanish court, whose costumes are often used as illustrations in the news about him because of their exquisite costumes.
△ Don Carlos costume
In addition to contributing a large number of exquisite costumes, Pierrot has also left a precious wealth for the industry itself. The most valuable of these were his two proud protégés.
Pierrot with Gabriel
Gabriella Pescucci, Piero's most famous disciple, masterpieces - "The Borgia Family", "The Age of Innocence" (won the 66th Academy Award for Best Costume), "Town Square", "Pulps and Strange Talks", "Remembrance of Watery Years", "Charlie's Chocolate Factory", "Van Helsing" and so on.
Pierrot with Maurizio
Maurizio Milenotti Maurizio Millenotti, another of Piero's masterpieces, is a masterpiece of Works such as Anna Karenina (Sophie Marceau version), Hamlet (Mel Gibson version), Sweetheart, The Pianist of the Sea, The Prince of Happiness, Immortal Truth, Heart of a King, etc.
These two inherited Pierrot's historical concepts and rich knowledge of fabrics, patterns, and colors to the greatest extent, and passed them on to their disciples. The most well-known of these are Carlo Poggioli, masterpiece "The Young Pope", and Massimo Parrini Parrini, masterpiece "The Story of the Story". Together, these people formed the most talented group of Italian designers.
△ Pierotosi Costume Exhibition, Pitti Palace, Florence.
△ Jewelry in each of Pierotosí's works
Another great contribution of Pierrot is the Tirelli Costumi costume factory he co-founded, which has been the first choice of Italian designers since the beginning of Leopard (several of which are its regular customers mentioned earlier), and the unquestionably highest level of the industry. Today it is one of the most important garment factories in the world, a mecca for Western costume designers, and countless classics. Over the decades, it has benefited many designers and will continue to produce more beautiful clothing.
Although Piero Tosi is gone and his fame may be gradually becoming unfamiliar to people today, his spirit will continue from generation to generation, and the ultimate beauty of his creation will continue to live on with his precious legacy for the costume design world.
A tribute to a generation of legends.
@ God cat Ronichu (ancient costume researcher), graphics from the Internet, invasion and deletion
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