When fashion met industry. Biki and Gruppo Finanziario Tessile (1957–72)

Abstract

In 1957, Silvio Rivetti (1921–61), heir to a long-standing Italian entrepreneurial dynasty and owner and manager of Gruppo Finanziario Tessile (GFT), asked Biki (Elvira Leonardi Bouyere, 1906–99) to design sketches for a womenswear collection to be produced by GFT. Conventionally considered by fashion historians as the first example of a collaboration between the fickle world of fashion and rationally planned industrial production, the partnership between the couturière and the biggest Italian clothing company never really succeeded and eventually resulted in failure, in 1972. The origins and development of the collaboration, its relevance for the evolution of commercial law, the economic value of the GFT collections designed by Biki, and the market response to them are the main topics dealt with in this paper. Based on historical sources unknown until now, it aims to show that the GFT–Biki partnership can be considered a milestone when studying the relationship between fashion and industry.

Keywords::

• Clothing industry
• fashion
• Italy
• twentieth century

Notes

¹ ‘Not only in Florence, but in Rome, Milan and other major cities, the Italian renaissance of fashion is in full swing. Less than two years ago, Italy's designers were scarcely known outside their own country…. The renaissance is due chiefly to the shrewd promotion of Florence's exporter, G. B. Giorgini. Last February he footed the bill himself (in return for a 5% commission on all sales) for the first collective showing in Florence by most of the top designers. That show and another last summer were such successes that there were shows all over Italy last week, and US buyers were hard put to catch them all’ (‘Italy's Renaissance’, Time, April 4, 1952).

² According to Kawamura (2005, 48) fashion ‘is a system of institutions, organizations, groups, producers, events and practices, all of which contribute to the making of fashion, which is different from dress or clothing’. See also Paris (2010).

³ On the occasion of the most important fashion shows, the great Italian designers of that time linked their names to those of some of the most famous national textile producers. To quote just an example, according to Fiorentini Capitani (1991, 12), ‘during the eleventh edition of the fashion show at the Sala Bianca in Florence Emilio Pucci presented his designs made out of Marzotto fabrics, Capucci those of Fabbricone of Prato, Carosa those of Tessiture Costa and Rhodiatoce, Veneziani those of Bemberg and Faudella, and Antonelli those of Textiloses & Textiles as well as Rhodiatoce’.

⁴ The research has largely resorted to an examination of the historical archives of GFT which are kept by the branch based in Turin of the Archivio di Stato (State Archive), within the section named Archivi Industriali (Business Archives), hereafter abbreviated respectively to AST and BA.

⁵ The spelling Rivetti appears for the first time in the registry archives in 1800.

⁶ AST, BA, GFT, box 2732, booklet ‘Confezione pronta – Istruzioni per prendere le misure’ (Ready-made clothing – Instructions on how to take measurements of the human body), 1958, and box 2733, IRIS (Istituto Ricerche Statistiche), Misurazione della popolazione femminile italiana (Measurement of the Italian female population), Turin, 1957.

⁷ The ISO story began in 1946 when delegates from 25 countries met at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London and decided to create a new international organization to oversee the standardization of indusrial products (see ISO Central Secretariat 1997).

⁸ AST, BA, GFT, box 2892, European association of clothing industries, Technical committee, Sub-group women's size, Proposal of Women's Sizes attached to the Minutes from the meeting held on 24 October 1963 in Paris.

⁹ AST, BA, GFT, box 1668, Minutes of the meeting of the Board of Directors, 29 September 1954.

¹⁰ AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Typescript, June 1957.

¹¹ AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Letter sent by Biki to Silvio Rivetti, 26 June 1957.

¹² AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Letter sent by Silvio Rivetti to Biki, 17 September 1957.

¹³ AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Payment mandates issued by GFT, 1957–59.

¹⁴ AST, BA, GFT, box, Private deed, 31 August 1960.

¹⁵ AST, BA, GFT, box, ‘Partnership Biki – Gft’, Minutes of the meeting held in Biki's atelier, 14 December 1961.

¹⁶ AST, BA, GFT, box 2727-31.

¹⁷ Evidence of GFT's commercial proposal and of the subsequent negotiation can be found in detailed correspondence between Biki and Franco Rivetti kept in AST, BA, GFT, box 2127.

¹⁸ AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Private deed, 20 November 1962.

¹⁹ AST, BA, GFT, box 2127, Letter sent by Biki to Franco Rivetti, 26 March 1965.

²⁰ AST, BA, GFT, box 2142, Private deed, 24 January 1966.

²¹ AST, BA, GFT, box 2142, Licensing agreement, Notarial deed, 24 January 1966, notary Ugo Gancia, file number 43735. As a trademark licensing agreement, it was also registered at the Italian Trademark and Patent Office, Registration act n. 7378, 10 March 1966. Biki had patented her trademark at the beginning of 1966 as results from the Central State Archives, Trademark and Patent Office, Registration act n. 178838, 18 January 1966. On June 1966, she also patented the same trademark at the French Trademark and Patent Office, Registration act n. 315.720.

²² AST, BA, GFT, box 2142, Letter sent by Biki to Franco Rivetti, 29 November 1972.

²³ AST, BA, GFT, box 2142, Dossier ‘Biki’ containing newspaper advertising about Lanerossi, Fenicia and Stellina–Marie d'Arc.

²⁴ AST, BA, GFT, box 2142, Letter sent by Biki to Franco Rivetti, 24 July 1971, and letters sent by Biki's lawyer Corso Bovio to GFT's in-house counsel Alberto Ugona, 12 March 1972 and 12 May 1972.

²⁵ AST, BA, GFT, box 3321, Ugona, A., L'esperienza del gruppo Gft nel campo della griffe e della proprietà industriale (GFT's experience in the field of griffe and property right), speech by GFT's in-house counsel Alberto Ugona at the meeting ‘Griffe, marchi e brevetti europei alla vigilia del 1992’ (Griffe, trademarks and patents on the eve of 1992). The European Union was established in 1992, following the Maastricht Treaty of 7 February, thus paving the way for the adoption of the Community trademark at the end of 1993. It allowed businesses to identify their goods and services in an identical manner throughout the entire European Union territory by obtaining, by means of a single procedure in a European Trademark Office, the registration of a trademark that would enjoy uniform protection and be effective within the whole of the European Union territory.

²⁶ AST, BA, GFT, box 2606, Fatture Biki.

²⁷ AST, BA, GFT, box 2892.