Umberto Tirelli

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Umberto Tirelli

Umberto Tirelli (Gualtieri, 1928 – Rome, 1992) was an Italian tailor, costume maker and designer, historian of costume and collector.

Tirelli was born in

National Chamber of Italian Fashion
, worked at the time. Tirelli and Modenese decided to rent a place together in order "to survive because our pay was minimal," as Tirelli recalled in his autobiography, Vestire i sogni. (Dressing Dreams)

In 1955, at the age of 27 Tirelli was offered an apprenticeship by Pia Rame and Carlo Mezzadri, who had just purchased the theatre costume manufacturer Finzi. At Finzi Tirelli met

Il Gattopardo and Death in Venice
. Tirelli worked on La Traviata by making the costumes for the female chorus.

At the end of the 1950s Tirelli moved to Rome to work in the

Sartoria
Safas for the sisters Emma and Gita Maggioni. He stayed there until 1964 when he started his own business.

Over the following fifty years, Tirelli worked with some of the biggest costume designers, including

Pierluigi Pizzi, Luciano Damiani, Danilo Donati, Gabriella Pescucci, Vera Marzot, Gitt Magrini, Ezio Frigerio, Milena Canonero, Marcel Escoffier, Maurizio Millenotti, Carlo Diappi and Maurizio Monteverde. Tirelli's contribution proved to be essential in terms of philology of fashion, the recovery of age-old techniques, and the quest for authentic outfits. (He had a Collection of 15,000 items, dating from the seventeenth century to the days of Chanel and Dior
).

An ardent costume collector, Tirelli defined himself as "a fashion archeologist". He used to say that he did "an archeological expeditions" every time he bought a costume. Tirelli's costume collection was used for cinema and theater. In 1986, he donated 100 authentic outfits and 100 theatrical costumes to the Galleria del Costume of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Since his death, his

sartoria
has been run by Dino Trappetti, Gabriella Pescucci and Giorgio D'Alberti.

References

  • Antonella Giannone and Patrizia Calefato, Manuale di comunicazione, sociologia e cultura della moda. Volume V, Performance. Meltemi, Rome, 2007.
  • Paola Bignami, Storia del costume teatrale, Carocci, Rome, 2005.
  • Caterina d'Amico e Gabriella Pescucci, Vestire la scena: L'atelier Tirelli, Electa, Milan, 1993.
  • Umberto Tirelli and Guido Vergani, Vestire i Sogni: il lavoro, la vita, i segreti di un sarto teatrale, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1981.

External links
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