Bertoli

Franco Bertoli (1910-1960) was a designer. He was among the thirteen people who, ignoring the danger of making enemies of the at-the-time very powerful French, accepted the invitation to show Italian fashions during a presentation to American buyers. It was February 1951. The presentation had a domestic setting, the drawing room of the Villa Torrigiani in Florence, the home of the man who would become the great strategist of the Made in Italy concept, Bista Giorgi. Bertoli already had a great deal of creative experience, intensified by the difficulty of finding fabric and materials during the war. He started as a designer of handbags. He had opened a small atelier in Milan on via Manzoni and there, on the eve of the conflict, he expanded his interests to include clothing. Maria Pezzi, the dean of fashion journalists, remembered she had seen him, around 1942, using dog collars to make bag handles: “In that period of shortages, there was now and then a batch of cheap fabric to be found. One day, Bertoli, who was thin and had the manner of a great gentleman, found yards and yards of lining material of horrendous quality but superb color, in shocking pink. He turned them into very nice umbrella-shaped skirts. If he could find silk or rayon waste, he had his concierge, who had a knitting machine, work on it. He used a batch of gros-grain ribbons to make some very fanciful bags.” Beppe Modenese, who witnessed the beginnings of fashion in Florence, said “Bertoli was among the first one to create appliqués, such as cloth flowers on the fabric of large skirts. The Americans were crazy about it. He was really creative and did things completely different from the others.” His adoptive son, Enzo Bertoli, continued his father’s work until 1995.