Iconic fashion designer Laura Biagiotti dies at 73

(ANSA) - Rome, May 26 - Italian fashion designer Laura Biagiotti, who conquered global markets with her feminine clothing and deluxe knits during a career that spanned over half a century, died on Friday at Rome's Sant'Andrea Hospital.
    She was 73.
    The designer suffered a heart attack on Wednesday at her castle in Guidonia, near the Italian capital.
    Doctors were able to resuscitate her but the designer suffered irreversible brain damage as a consequence of the attack.
    Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna announced her mother's death in a tweet on Friday, citing a passage from St John's Gospel: "In the house of my father there are many places. If not, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you".
    Born in Rome on August 4, 1943, Biagiotti started designing clothing in the 1960s at the atelier of her mother Delia Soldaini Biagiotti, after graduating in archaeology.
    She started gaining traction in the 1970s with her voluptuous silhouettes and a palette dominated by white and red - two colors inspired by her city.
    She initially worked with well-established fashion houses such as Emilio Federico Schubert, Roberto Capucci and Rocco Barocco and debuted her first solo collection in Florence in 1972, winning over the press and buyers.
    In 1988, Biagiotti was the first Italian designer to stage a fashion show in China.
    She also became the first to debut a collection inside the Kremlin in Moscow in 1995.
    A staunch promoter of Italian fashion worldwide, Biagiotti celebrated 50 years in fashion in 2015 at Milan Fashion week.
    "The oxymoron of fashion, as that of nature, is extracting the eternal from the ephemeral", she said at the time.
    Since 1980, Biagiotti had lived and worked in the countryside of Guidonia, near Rome, in the medieval castle Marco Simone, which she had restored with husband Gianni Cigna.
    Her husband, who was also her business partner, died of leukemia in 1996.
    Their daughter Lavinia began working for the family company in 1997 and is now the creative director of the fashion house.