An alarm clock rings. The crackling of a radio navigating between frequencies. The voice of a woman talking about the discovery of water on Mars, life beyond the confines of Earth. The lights turn on and the first model appears: disheveled, just out of bed, she is wearing a white nightgown with two cherubs and a bag in the shape of a sugar cloud. “I wanted to talk about the dream, about waking up, and not lack irony,” says Francesca Murri. Everything about Fiorucci’s spring-summer 2025 show was deliberate. It is not the brand’s first collection under the new management, with Murri – who had cut his teeth at Gucci, Etro and Ferragamo – on the creative side and Alessandro Pisani – former Diesel director – on the executive side. But it is the first to take to the catwalk, marking the return of the emblematic Italian house on the official calendar of Milan Fashion Week. And from the space in the Triennale to the fishbowl-shaped earrings, an intention was evident. “It’s a manifesto,” says the designer. The 1967 emblazoned on the T-shirts commemorated the year the first store opened. The shoes revisited those first rubber designs, the work of a very young Manolo Blahnik. Even the models’ lips, painted with hearts like those of Carroll’s capricious queen, honored the mischievous and highly irreverent attitude that made Fiorucci’s name great. “Everything we do has to be authentic.”
In the Italian’s tone you can sense vertigo. He knows that the task ahead is daring, and has no guarantees: resurrecting a brand engraved in the collective imagination as the pinnacle of modern Italian fashion is not easy. Less when it involves the feat of a creator whom he referred to as the mentor of a generation. The list of attempts is long. Vionnet. Rochas. Rykiel. Poiret. Halston. The success story, not so much. Even among those who manage to get ahead, there are always those who accuse them of anachronistic continuity or gratuitous rupturism. Apparently there are two ways to restore a fashion house, and neither is correct.
Waking up a brand from an induced coma is the business equivalent of finding life on Mars. And this is not the first time they have tried. This 2025 will be 65 years since the birth of the brand, 58 since the opening of the first store, 10 since Elio’s death and 3 since Dona Bertarelli—the investor and philanthropist, heir to the Serono pharmaceutical emporium and one of the largest fortunes in Switzerland—took over the flag and its archives. Before her it was in the hands of a Japanese denim producer, and later of Stephen and Janie Schaffer. She, known as the panty queen, created Knickerbox in the nineties and is now behind his redemption. Even after divorcing in 2006, she has been his faithful business sidekick. The Bonnie and Clyde of lingerie, they called them. They bought the brand in 2015, moved the headquarters to London and opened a three-story store on Brewer Street. They did not skimp on the pomp: they signed Daniel Fletcher to spur the men’s line and launched an anthology with Rizzoli. Sofia Coppola wrote the prologue. It wasn’t enough.
“I don’t want to judge the previous management,” Pisani appeases, “but I can say that what we have in mind is less superficial.” Under the leadership of the Schaffers there were achievements: a commercial network with 80 points of sale and a peak of anemoia postmillennial that translated into large sales of t-shirts. “But now we need to elevate the brand.” It heads into the affordable high-end segment: that sweet space between a luxury that has lost its mind with prices and a mass market dominated by giants against whom you cannot compete. On the roadmap are interdisciplinary collaborations, an approach more inclined to design than to merchandisingand return to the made in Italy. The crux: put together a narrative that is both consistent with the legacy and relevant to the now.
“The same principles, with a contemporary approach,” says Murri. Coming from leading the accessories departments of large houses – the float of luxury: bags account for up to 45% of sales – he understands that the product is essential. But we also have to go further. And even more so in a house like Fiorucci, which invented the marketing experiential. He sold perfumes, magazines and all kinds of paraphernalia. Designs from budding creators like Anna Sui and Betsey Johnson. There was a restaurant where they served hamburgers on Richard Ginori plates until two in the morning. Events and performances. The parties were prodigious. He invited Keith Haring to intervene in the facade—it took him two days to cover it—and national television covered the news. In the boutique in New York, five blocks from where Studio 54 would open shortly after, Andy Warhol launched his Interview and Madonna made herself known. Maripol was the manager. Elizabeth Taylor, Divine, Jackie O and Queen Sofia, regular customers. Joey Arias, who then worked as a sales assistant, recounts whenever possible that Lauren Bacall went shopping and, for lack of a better receptacle, used her hand as an ashtray. “If you think about the Fiorucci of yesterday,” says Alessandro Pisani. It was the first fashion brand to sign an eyewear license and agreement with Disney. He edited his own fanzine. “The opportunity with Fiorucci is that you can sell a lot of content. But you run the risk of the message being diluted.”
Do you wonder what Elio would have done? “Of course, and it is a problem,” says Murri. Because? “Because I’m not Elio.” It’s not the seventies either. To dwell on the past would be to betray the idiosyncrasy of the creator. We are talking about the man whom Gillo Dorfles described as “the Duchamp of fashion.” The original rebel. A pioneer in the art of blurring the line between clothing, art, design and social culture. History gives you the coordinates, not a vademecum to follow scrupulously. “We studied the archives to identify the values we wanted to recook. I’m not interested in icons, but I am interested in what made them so eloquent,” says Pisani. “It’s about being culturally relevant today. And I think the key is in that clash between the mundane and the transcendental. Between a bag shaped like marshmallow and a collaboration with an artist.” They have already taken care of the first thing: their Mella bag is a success. For the second, they have created Casa Fiorucci – although the name is provisional -: a 700 square meter space next to their offices, in Sarpi, Milan’s Chinatown, which will host exhibitions, events, concerts, talks. “We like the idea of creating this open system. “A galaxy of collaborations that add pieces to the narrative.” The laboratory of ideas that Douglas Coupland referred to when he talked about Fiorucci in the eighties. A revolution like the one Elio perpetrated then seems impossible today. “But we can stimulate reflection,” defends Murri. “Francesca came from working in large firms. I was running a billion-dollar business. If Dona Bertarelli came here it wasn’t to amass a fortune either,” says Pisano. “We did it because we believe in what this brand can once again represent socially and culturally: a platform for expression, a space for positivity, an alternative in this permacrisis. Fiorucci should always make you smile.”
