«CWho’s that brunette who gets so excited?” asked Luchino Visconti. Umberto Tirelli was a curious, passionate shop boy, with a ringing voice. She came from the lower Po Valley. «I am a farmer from Emilia» he said of himself. Humble origins and intellectual fevers. The great director took him to the Safas tailor shop. Then Umberto opened his own in 1964. He had met Visconti, famous for his reconstructions of environments and clothes, at La Scala for the 1955 Traviata, the one where Maria Callas throws her shoes towards the stage to free her feet tired from dancing too much. The sets and costumes were by Lila de Nobili (unforgettable and forgotten) who had Danilo Donati and Piero Tosi as assistants. All names that have become legendary.
The rise of Tirelli tailoring
Buttons, buckles, trimmings, gloves, hats, Visconti and Tosi dragged Tirelli into a find that became a magnificent obsession. The pleasure of finding finds to return to the stage. When Umberto decided to start his own business, it began with two sewing machines, five seamstresses and cutters, and a milliner, a secretary and a warehouse assistant. Sixty years have passed. Starting from scratch, Tirelli fell into debt and asked friends for help. Then he repaid those who had lent money and as interest payment he gave Bulgari jewels. He asked Dino Trappetti, who had made his severance pay from his job at Siemens available to him: “Do you also want to be reimbursed or do you want to join the company?”. Instead of getting his money back, Trappetti retained his membership shares in the Tirelli tailoring shop, which from Leopard to Once upon a time in Americapassing through opera and theater, dresses the dreams of actors, singers, directors and spectators.
Umberto died young, in 1990. Since then, the thread of the work, the relationship of the colors, the choice of fabrics and fabrics, is in the hands of Dino Trappetti. «I didn’t know anything even though I had a trained eye, a sense of proportion, attention to detail… I came from my job as press officer at the Spoleto Festival, the one in the golden years with Romolo Valli who worked alongside Menotti, and then at the Rossini Opera Festival”.
All the Oscars of Sartoria Tirelli
His first film in command, The age of innocence by Martin Scorsese, which earned the Oscar for Gabriella Pescucci’s costumes made at Tirelli. In total, 17 statuettes created in the laboratory in via Pompeo Magno. The first was for The Casanova by Fellini, costumes by Danilo Donati; one of the most prestigious Oscars went to Amadeus, costumes by the Czech Theodor Pistěk. The American Anne Roth, however The English Patientclutching the Oscar he said: “I have a 30-year career, I had to go to Italy to win it.”
Kristin Scott Thomas protagonist of “The English Patient” by Anthony Minghella (1996): of the 9 Oscars won, one was for costume design, which went to the American Anne Roth. (Photo courtesy Miramax Films)
Clothes cataloged by “social class”
Umberto bequeathed the majority shares to his lifelong friend, Dino Trappetti, others to Gabriella Pescucci, Pier Luigi Pizzi and Piero Tosi. Dino internationalized Tirelli, bringing America back to Italy. He opened the Formello warehouses, 7000 square meters on the outskirts of Rome which house 350 thousand costumes. It is cut and sewn strictly by handbut the immense sartorial heritage has been computerized, divided by era (from decade to decade) and by social class. The beggars; Poors; the bourgeoisie divided into small, medium and upper classes; the aristocracy; the rulers.
Which fabrics give you the most satisfaction? «Mikado and silk jersey. They adapt beautifully to women’s bodies.” Now five dresses have been reproduced for Angelina Jolie who shot the film about Maria Callas, including the red silk one for Visconti’s La Traviata. A project that Dino looks at with a certain coldness, because «I have reservations about films that remind me of people I’ve met, I don’t like imitations». There is The Leopard which becomes a Netflix series, with Deva Cassel, daughter of Vincent and Monica Bellucci, “perfect, she knows what it means to dress”.
Sophia’s great refusal
Dino Trappetti remembers Matt Damon. After the rehearsal for The Talented Mr. Ripley he asked him: “Do you want to look in the mirror?”. And he: “No, you are my mirror.” Remember Helen Mirren who tried on about twenty dresses for hours he was asked if he needed anything, and she said: “Just a coffee, thanks.” Remember Sophia Loren. «There was a delivery error for Lady L’s dress by Peter Ustinov. She is a super professional, the dress for an actress is a second skin, she felt insecure, uncomfortable.” Only after many years did she accept Tirelli again for Human voice of his son Edoardo Ponti. “I was too harsh on you,” she said, adding that the suit looked like it was made by Schuberth, the divas’ designer.. She was ten years ago.
Sophia Loren in The Human Voice by Edoardo Ponti from 2014. (Photo by Pietro Vertamy)
Trappetti remembers Rod Steiger in down the head: he tried on the clothes and said that nothing suited him. Tirelli sent two tailors. It soon became clear that the problem was that Steiger was small in stature and Coburn (the co-star) was very tall. «We made him boots with a rise inside and very high heels. If he put them on, he smiled at them. Everything fell into place. He wanted 12 pairs and took them all away». Then remember Robert De Niro in Once upon a time in America by Sergio Leone: «We were shooting in Cinecittà, I went to the back of the sound stage, where there was a long bar counter. At a certain point I see De Niro making me move. Leone shouted: “Who is that idiot ruining my scene?” ».
Dino Trappetti (who also appeared in the Leopard dance and played the marquis in Play of parts by Pirandello, a 1970 film) says that Isabella Ferrari and Luisa Ranieri «it is a pleasure to dress them», but the same cannot be said of many young actresses, «who have no awareness and while they come to try on a costume they start fiddling with your cell phone.” The other half of Tirelli are the high fashion collections. The donations chapter opens. Georgette Ranucci, great lady of Roman cinema, gave away 80 dresses by Saint Laurent, Ungaro, Lancetti; from Jolanda Quinn, widow of Anthony Quinn, one hundred dresses by American designers. Others from Domietta del Drago, Olimpia Torlonia and other Roman noblewomen.
Tirelli, the archaeologist of fashion
The years of fun and surprises for the fashion archaeologist, as he called himself Umberto Tirelli, they are those of the 60s and 70s, when he went hunting for flea markets and second-hand shops. But Umberto had also fallen into the good graces of two elderly ladies whose mother had been a lady-in-waiting in the Savoy house. They had kept an extraordinary wardrobe: it ended up in his hands. He had the cult of friendship and the pleasure of the table. She was an avalanche. She dressed Pasolini’s Medea and Visconti’s Ludwig. At the beginning, in Rome, he went to live in via Due Macelli with Bolognini, Tosi, Donati, Zeffirelli, who in his autobiography writes that as a boy the Emilian with the imperious tone «rummaged in the attics, recovered old rags to create costumes and disguises ».
After Umberto’s death it was necessary to take up the scissors and chalk again. The “creed” of tailoring? Beauty and harmony are obtained only if created, elaborated and lived according to the practices of the era in which they were born. Dino Trappetti remembers the first meeting between Umberto and Lila De Nobili, for Come le leaves di Giacosa which Visconti would have staged in Milan. «This coat is fine – she began – but if you bring me a basin with some water in it, possibly hot, and a little bleach, I’ll fix the color because it’s too bold like that». She took her coat, threw it into the tin basin, took off her shoes, her socks and started pounding on her coat in front of everyone. Then she took it out: “Hang it like this, don’t iron it, you’ll see it’s perfect.” It had become De Nobili’s painting.” It’s not about retying a thread: that thread of the past has never dissolved. The story continues.
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