Barbie and Puccimania
In the 90s the "Puccimania" rebirthed when Pucci's daughter took the reins of the emporium and people went crazy again.
In 1992, the same year of Pucci's death was born one of the best seller Barbies of all the times Totally Hair Barbie, inspired by Pucci.
"I wanted Barbie's clothes to exude the same sense of fun that her kicky crimped locks would, so I decided to model them on the work of Emilio Pucci, the Italian designer renowned for vibrant, graphic patterns"
Carol Spencer in Dressing Barbie
But, what's with Puccimania?
Marchese Emilio Pucci di Barsento was a noble and a fashion designer who has a little more to do with Barbie than it could seem. He was a marquis by birth but in fashion was known as "The Prince of the Prints" who dressed some queens of Hollywood, a first lady and sadly a corpse, Marilyn.
His career began in 1947 creating sportif clothes and getting a lot of knowledge because of this. His expansion to America in the 60s was after years dressing the high class in Capri and Rome and he dressed the americans in free flowing dresses, and tunics made from comfortable and innovative fabrics with psychedelic optical prints inspired first by noble heraldic banners and his mediterranean culture and later by his travels to exotic places.
At some point, destiny made him to cross paths with Barbie when in 1965 he designed the uniforms for the sky and ground crew from Braniff Airlines in a project that revolutioned the way of flight "The End of the Plain Plane".
He created colorful and futurist outfits, a bubble helmet to protect the hairstyle from the weather and a new concept the "Air Strip". The outfits were designed in a way that the stewardesses lost pieces of their clothes during the flight, the jacket, the scarf... pretty innocent apparently but the sexiness of the outfits revealed another purpose much less innocent and less related with the weather in a time when most of the passengers were bussiness men.
Then in 1967 "Barbie goes Braniff!" Four replicas of his designs were made for Barbie by Marx toys. The company sold them and didn't forget to include the Pucci pilot uniform for Ken.
It seems that the "Prince of the Prints" finally also served as inspiration to dress the "Queen of the Dolls", a queen who with her crimped and extra long hair would conquer thousands of people, adults and children, for decades to come to our days when madness still rages. And it is that both Barbie and Pucci have been and will always be icons of fashion.
by The Barbiest