Vergottini

Family of hairdressers — at first, the brothers Cele, Lina, Bruno — which dictated fashion in hairdos, especially in Milan in 1960s and which is still well known and influential, with its geometric cuts. It was called the Casco d’oro, like the pop singer Caterina Caselli with her long blonde bangs that covered her eyebrows and the fade cut high up on the back of the neck: a creation that brought the name of Vergottini and their salon in the Via Montenapoleone to the front pages of the daily press. This led to the creation of the “vergottinata” look, either with long or short hair but always with an unmistakable, squared-off cut. From the United States, Paris, and London they would flock to the Via Montenapoleone, legendary journalists like Diana Vreeland, photographers like Bailey, Newton, Avedon, Clarke, and models like Veruschka, Fiona von Thyssen, Isa Stoppi, as well as movie stars (Monica Vitti) or television stars (Raffaella Carrà). Even the protagonist of the sophisticated graphic novel by Guido Crepax, Valentina, is a “vergottinata.” But alongside the smooth, squared-off hair in the Casco d’oro style, other lines and other cuts soon developed. Quite popular was the savage cut, created for the theater of Giorgio Strehler with Goldoni’s Il Campiello: a permanent with the hair dried naturally and distributed around the face in an unkempt manner.