Costume fitting: Roberto Capucci’s costumes for Sergio Bernal and Young Gyu Choi for Les Étoiles
Roberto Capucci, the creator of the most exquisite gowns, now at the age of 90, has designed costumes for the dancers Sergio Bernal and Young Gyu Choi. They will go on stage for three galas, Les Étoiles, in Rome (24-26 January 2020). Below is a gallery of his designs and the two dancers during a fitting for the costumes in Capucci’s home in Rome.
Christian Dior once said that the nonagenarian Roberto Capucci was “the best creator of Italian fashion”. If you don’t know his work, google him and be awed. He says,
A few years ago, while organising my archive of drawings for my Foundation, I came across an old yellowed envelope, and its contents made me leap back in time: it was from 1948 when I was 18 years old, and a student Academy of Fine Arts. It contained sketches for costumes for a musical revue in Buenos Aires. I remember my passion and excitement designing those costumes but, as is often the case, the project did not go ahead.
As we know, my professional life took another direction but if things had gone another way maybe I would not be a fashion designer but be living in Argentina!
Apart from designing a production of Capriccio in 2002 at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, with my dear friend, the soprano Raina Kabaivanska, I haven’t designed anything else for the stage. However, theatre costumes have always remained close to my heart and so, in my spare time, I would do some designs. I began to show my sketches in exhibitions: at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Palazzo Scarpetta in Naples, and so on. The success with both critics and the public encouraged me to continue and so I’ve immersed myself in this project [for Les Étoiles] with great excitement and energy.
A wonderful meeting with the artistic director of Les Étoiles, my friend Daniele Cipriani, convinced me to dress two of the dancers for the gala. It was as though time hadn’t passed… and there are other projects on the way!
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
