Lucchini

Flavio (1928). Journalist and publisher, born in Curtatone Montanara. Lucchini has contributed to the success of Italian fashion through the magazines he edited. In 1950 he founded and edited Fantasia, a fashion monthly. His name was connected with the launch of the weekly Amica, the magazine that assisted the Corriere della Sera group to respond to the stranglehold the publishers Mondadori and Rizzoli had in the women’s magazines sector. Amica was conceived by Franco Sartori, with Enrico Gramigna responsible for the graphics and the editorial launch. Three years later Lucchini took over direction of Novità which, for Condé Nast, he transformed into Vogue. In 1977 he created Lei, a monthly for young girls. Compared to Condé Nast’s traditional glossy publications, this magazine was rather an upstart. It began well but sales fell off. With Gisella Borioli, his wife, in 1980 he founded the monthlies Donna and Mondo Uomo under his own company, Edimoda. Though in direct competition with the Condé Nast periodicals, the two enjoyed a long success. Donna launched the careers of great Italian photographers like Fabrizio Ferri and Giovanni Gastel. For Eri, the Italian State television’s publishing house, he designed the layout of the monthly Moda. Not content to sit on his laurels, in 1983 Lucchini started an ambitious and very difficult project (the Italian market was packed with women’s magazines): the launch of a new weekly called Eva, under the editorial command of Francesco Cevasco. The idea was innovative: the first issue was published at the end of September and sold more than 150,000 copies, but within a few months the circulation declined and the project failed. Following the death of Franco Sartori, the general manager of Vogue Italy, in 1990 Lucchini was called back to Condé Nast to take Franco’s place as director of the Italian office. Internal problems resulted in Lucchini selling 30% of his company Edimoda (publisher of Donna and Mondo Uomo) to his publishing partner Edilio Rusconi, starting a slow detachment from the world of publishing. In 1993 he accepted a position in Condé Nast Italy as a consultant, though his mind was moving slowly towards art. Nowadays Lucchini pairs his management of the Superstudio group (photographic studios, spaces and services for fashion communications and design), with his activity as a sculptor, inspiration for which comes exclusively from the world of fashion that he helped to create.