Iconic fashion designer Elio
Fiorucci was found dead at his Milan home on Monday, sources
said.
He had turned 80 on June 6.
Relatives alerted emergency services after he failed to
answer the telephone at the weekend. He was "in good health" but
may have succumbed to a sudden illness, the Fiorucci press
office said.
Fiorucci's typical offerings, combining Italian taste and a
London spirit, were made up of bright and fluorescent colors,
T-shirts printed with angels, and plastic-based accessories.
He told ANSA in an interview just ahead of his 80th
birthday that "I've always been apolitical, a great lover of
freedom of thought".
"At just six years old I lived through the trauma of the
Second World War, with the bombings that shook Milan and people
who were dying without knowing why," he said.
"But I was lucky to live during a fascinating period such
as the 1960s...a moment of great social change, when young
people were thinking of liberty, of peace," he went on.
"That's when I realized the need to express myself freely,
without political ties to the right or the left," Fiorucci said.
He sold his company Fiorucci SpA in 1990 to Japanese
company Edwin Co. Ltd., but 11 years ago founded a new brand
called Love Therapy which is still successful today.
The designer said two key words that he saw as nearly
obsolete should be brought back into everyday conversation:
waste and empathy.
"Our excesses reflect negatively on planetary balance,
limiting everyone's resources," he said.
"Let's try to translate the rules of harmonious living into
a code of fair sharing," he said.
"Let's put our duties towards animals, nature, the
environment, our neighbors, in black and white," said Fiorucci.
"That way we will automatically discover the meaning of
empathy".
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