Battistoni

Boutique in Rome founded by Guglielmo Battistinoni in 1946. A student at the Academy of Fine Arts, he soon became, out of necessity and vocation, a shirt maker. He made the collar points longer and slightly larger than classic models, modernizing men’s shirts. His boutique, located in an interior court off via Condotti, became, starting in the 1950s, a meeting place for artists and literary men. Still today, one can see pictures by Picasso, Modigliani, Guttuso, Matta and Cocteau on the walls. Among the most regular clients were Andy Warhol and Marlon Brando, as well as the Duke of Windsor, Charlie Chaplin, Marc Chagall and John Cassavetes. Alberto Moravia collected Battistoni’s famous croatté ties. Furthermore, the shop was known for its Oxford and fil à fil shirts, its sport jackets, morning coats and smoking jackets, both ready-to-wear and made-to-measure. Battistoni is today managed by Guglielmo’s children, Gianni and Simonetta, and has been able to diversify with a line of women’s prêt-à-porter, four perfumes (the Marta and Mars bottles were designed by Renato Guttuso), foulards, crocodile-skin belts, and shoes. In Milan, they have a boutique on via della Spiga.
Presentation of the new fragrance Creation, at the opening of the Giacomo Manzù exhibit at the Maison Battistoni in Palazzo Caffarelli, Rome. It continues the duality of art and fashion that has characterized the firm since its earliest days.
Via Condotti celebrates Rome, cinema, fashion and the chronicles of the 1950s and ’60s in the exhibit Eleganza e Illusione (Elegance and Illusion). The designers of via Condotti opened their personal archives and brought out period photographs, files, and catalogues. In the atrium and courtyards of Battistoni, the elegance of Dino Pedrali met the “illusion” of five unpublished shots from Fellini’s last film, La Voce della Luna (The Voice of the Moon).