1970s COPPOLA E TOPPO for VALENTINO Orange Plastic and Gold Metal Belt
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1970s COPPOLA E TOPPO for VALENTINO Orange Plastic and Gold Metal Belt
About the Item
Valentino
The mononymously known Italian designer Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani (b. 1932) is renowned for his fashion house of romantic styles and feminine shapes that he founded in Rome in 1960. Valentino dresses, skirts and other apparel captured the hearts of many of Italy’s wealthiest ladies in the couturier’s early days and led to commissions from Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, Jayne Wrightsman and others on the international best-dressed list (when it still meant something). They sought out Valentino for gorgeous gowns, jackets, elegant daytime wear and even when they needed wedding dresses.
An early fascination with fashion developed when Valentino attended the theater as a child and was dazzled by the evening gowns on stage. While a teenager in Voghera, Lombardy, he studied under Italian designer Ernestina Salvadeo and soon moved to Paris, where he trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne. Valentino spent time apprenticing under haute couturiers Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche, learning how to design and construct high fashion while also thinking about how to strike out on his own.
In 1959, Valentino returned to Italy, and a year later, he opened his own salon, soon joining with longtime professional and personal partner Giancarlo Giammetti. It was located on Rome’s trendy Via Condotti and modeled after the French maisons. One of his earliest clients was Elizabeth Taylor, who discovered Valentino while she was in Rome filming Cleopatra and ordered the white dress that she wore to the premiere of Spartacus.
When the designer launched his first couture line in 1962 with its fiery red colors, it was internationally celebrated, with Valentino soon attiring fashion trendsetters including Princess Margaret and Audrey Hepburn. He formed an especially close friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for whom he designed numerous dresses. Luxurious drapery with fine needlework, bold uses of color and dramatic flourishes would define Valentino fashion across the decades.
As a fashion house, Valentino is best known for its signature Valentino Red color, though one of its iconic lines is the monochromatic “no colour” collection for which the designer won the Neiman Marcus Award in 1967. (The collection also debuted his trademark “V.”) The white dresses and beige dresses led to a demand for Valentino wedding gowns, with clients including Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Lopez and Anne Hathaway.
Valentino retired from his fashion empire in 2007, with Alessandra Facchinetti and then the duo Maria Grazia Chiuri (who departed in 2016) and Pierpaolo Piccioli succeeding him as creative directors. But Valentino still steps out of retirement for special occasions, such as designing a wedding gown for Princess Madeleine of Sweden in 2013.
Today, the brand offers a range of collections that include the Valentino Garavani line and REDValentino, a diffusion line that is aimed at a younger audience. The house has expanded far beyond women’s haute couture and prêt-à-porter to encompass various lines of accessories, including shoes, sunglasses, scarves and perfume.
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Coppola e Toppo
Postwar Italian fashion jewelry company Coppola e Toppo created flamboyant, larger-than-life accessories that earned the brand legions of admirers in luxury houses and retail shops all over Europe. Working with unconventional materials such as gunmetal, crystal beads and Murano glass, Coppola e Toppo became known for its range of distinctive, vibrantly colored necklaces, earrings, bracelets and more.
Today, Coppola e Toppo is revered as an iconic producer of costume, or fashion, jewelry, which is designed to accessorize with current fashions and typically made with inexpensive materials. The Venice-born Lyda Coppola (1915–86) worked in postwar Milan at a tailor and learned jewelry design with Czech jewelry maker Ada Pollitzer. She launched her jewelry house in the late 1940s, and when she was married, she added her surname Toppo to the company name and was supported by her brother Bruno Coppola in her endeavor.
Although a feature in Vogue that ran shortly after Coppola e Toppo took shape proved to be a significant piece of publicity for the Italian brand — which would soon design lavish confections for the likes of Lanvin, Balmain, Valentino and others — the 1960s are said to have been a turning point for Coppola e Toppo, especially as the era’s fashion-conscious jewelry lovers increasingly became enamored with candy-colored gems. An embrace of free expression and fascination with cultures around the world took hold and resulted in vibrant jewelry with global influences.
Christian Dior and Balenciaga purchased numerous pieces from Coppola e Toppo that would adorn their models and be sold in their retail spaces, and many other clients and customers soon followed. Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli commissioned the jewelers to create a collection, which they titled Bijoux Voyagers.
In 2020, Italian businessman Pietro Paolo Longhitano and designer Rossella Jardini announced plans to relaunch the Coppola e Toppo brand, with a focus on the style and materials that made the brand famous in the first place.
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