Bellezza, Novità, Vogue, l’Europeo, Vanity Fair, Vogue Sposa…
Throughout the twentieth century, there are countless titles that tell the story of Gallia e Peter, show their models, trace their path, their cues, their creations. Let it be a full page in which, in 1946 (a couple of years after Lia entered the atelier), Bellezza describes a black felt model with a raised edge and rooster feather trim applied to the side of one temple, or whether it is the piece with which, in May 1972, Vogue illustrates the "hat in bloom" made of straw and paired with a tank top bain de soleil, Gallia e Peter's hats fully enter the history of fashion publishing of the last century. One by one, Laura Marelli collects articles about her company. She puts them together, studies them, observes them. She composes her personal archive with collector's scruples, with expert care. Today, through those pages, one can trace the history of Italian and international fashion: the postwar desire for lightness and the desire for rebirth, the first rebellious instincts of the 1960s with the essentiality inspired by Jackie Kennedy and the looks launched by the jet set, the wide brims and scarves of the flower children of the 1970s, the irrepressible eccentricity of the 1980s, the irrepressible modernity of the following decade. But through those pages there also emerges, and not subtly but in full force, a very rich family history, made up of women who created and kept Gallia e Peter alive through wars, liberations, renewals, revolutions, evolutions, insights, changes of course and confirmations. Thus, as we explore Laura Marelli's collection, we come across the fashion figurines made for Bellezza in the 1940s by Sardinian illustrator and artist Edina Altara, an undisputed master of telling the story of how art meets industrial production and popular expressiveness. Altara's is the concrete demonstration, the demonstration made in pictures, of how a straw hat by Gallia e Peter can anticipate the advent of the new, long-awaited next season. Going a little further, here in the archives is the l'Europeo of October 22, 1952: the central pages tell of the philosophical break between Camus and Sartre, right next to photographs of some models wearing black tulle bonnets and tambourine signed by the atelier. We are in the years when Mariuccia Gallia travels between Milan and Paris and proposes her creations in the Florentine fashion shows at the Pitti Palace, in a roundabout way that combines existentialist philosophy, haute couture and high craftsmanship. The date, all seated at one table, could be at the famous Café Fleur or at Les Deux Magots to tell, with the same elegant ease, metaphysical concepts and insights into fashion history, in an exciting meeting of ideas, minds and people. Also in the 1950s, Gallia e Peter hats decorated with flowers, fruit and refined veils conquered the covers and inside pages of Novelties, in a riot of freshness and color that bewitched and seduced the atelier's customers. On a double inside page from August 1952 the company's hairstyles and headpieces are juxtaposed with a showcase of elegant veilleuse, softly lit night lamps, and precious objects kept in Palazzo Soma, famous in Milan for a curious architectural detail: the ear-shaped intercom made by Adolfo Wildt.
Also in the issue of Novità of November '64 features a fluorescent pink hairstyle signed Gallia e Peter on the cover, stopped with an antique jewel composed of very rare pink topazes and diamonds. A powerful, unforgettable, apt cover. A few months pass and, in April 1965, in Vogue is the flawless style inspired by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's to be flanked by Monte Napoleone's latest creations. The atelier's clients proudly point out those pages to their friends at the most renowned Milanese parties: they are proud of them, realizing that, long ago, they had been right on the mark. Just a couple of years later, here are the atelier's hats again, providing the perfect counterpoint to the red and blue metallic paper embroideries that shine on black wool jersey vests and white picché blouses edged in lace for the folkloric explosion dear to the new decade. Fashion changes, Gallia e Peter observe it, make it their own, reinvent it. Thus, a little further on, we find his hats paired with the passionate and Latin "Gaucha" looks, perfect for imposing themselves on the pages of Vogue international. With absolute nonchalance the skilled hands of the milliners manage to intuit and dictate the desires of customers who are changing their taste, who are renewing themselves. With the debut of the 1970s, the affluence becomes more and more widespread: on Vogue, as we discover from Laura's archive, is a riot of leather dresses, furs, casual style, urban instincts. All inspired by an increasingly confident, decisive, determined, seductive contemporary woman. In the exciting and irrepressible years of the great catwalks, in fashion magazines Gallia e Peter's hats make a fine showing alongside the most famous brands, Prada, Ferré, Missoni, and Aldo Coppola's "endless" hairstyles. It was the era when the French Riviera and its golden life conquered designers and big editors: a timeless classic that Vogue recounts in its pages, making white and blue two of the signature colors of the 1980 winter season. Women, like those of Mila Schon, take back their spaces and their freedoms: they begin to have fun in front of the lenses, they smile and become more and more protagonists and indeed advocates of their own destiny and choices. They lose that aura of distance and impose themselves with their own forms and characters: closer than ever, more concrete, more real, but always beautiful. Also appearing on the editorials are the great models - Carla Bruni, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen, Eva Herzigová - and the lenses of the absolute giants of photography. Personalities such as Helmut Newton, Giampaolo Barbieri, Alfa Castaldi.
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In the Gallia e Peter archive one of the most precious gems of these years dates back to 1989. It is the column in Vogue "D.P. Doppie Pagine di Anna Piaggi," which in the February issue was inspired by the design of Thonet's celebrated chairs and explodes the combination of different geniuses, all connected: the creative one of Gianfranco Ferrè, the craftsmanship of Gallia e Peter, the photographic one of Arthur Elgort, and the narrative one of the eccentric journalist and writer Anna Piaggi, famous for her sharp, subversive pen and the rigorous style with which she captured news and questions behind the scenes of the catwalks. It was she (wife, by the way, of photographer Alfa Castaldi) who first of all sensed the detonating power of the vintage concept, the same one that emerges in the fil rouge that in this column, through the element of straw, connects different creative fields. Seduction, irony, eccentricity are the keystones of the 1990s, between charming necklines and wardrobes inspired by old movies. This is where hairstyles become sculptures and rediscover a winking care that seemed archived. A care that we also find in the eccentric look of Patty Pravo, who, in total black, shows off an irresistible Marabou hairpiece on Vogue in October 1994. In short, those same magazines that were sources of inspiration and cues for Mariuccia, Lia and Laura's milliners have become the places where Gallia e Peter hats rise to legend. They are recounted, shown, offered as models for inspiration, and are often juxtaposed with design pieces. It is safe to say. Those hats, now, are part of history. And they continue to be talked about well into the 2000s. As when they celebrated the Armani Privé collections in 2005 or when, in the fall of 2012, they crowned models in fiery red hues dressed in leather by Valentino - soaring in the heart of the Bon Maché on the Left Bank in Paris. Or again when in spring 2016 they end up, again, on the cover of Vogue Sposa thanks to the photograph taken by Katie McCurdy: model Meredith Mickelson, a cloud tulle gown with a deep neckline on both neckline and back, a wide skirt in shades of pink by "Le Spose di Giò." Etro embroidered satin ballet shoes. Worked stockings by Maria La Rosa. Hairstyle with Gallia e Peter feathers. Practically perfect in every way. Worthy of the cover of Vogue, without any doubt.
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