FLORENCE, ITALY – Italian fashion designer Laura Biagiotti has died in Rome, after suffering a cardiac arrest on Wednesday evening. She was 73. Her solo career began in Florence in 1972.
Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna announced her mother’s death in a tweet on Friday, citing a passage from St John’s Gospel: «In the house of my father there are many places. If not, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you».
Born in Rome on August 4, 1943, Biagiotti studied literature in Rome, expecting to become an archeologist, but started to help out at her parents’ dressmaking business and had her first fashion show in 1972. Her mother, Delia Biagiotti had designed the uniforms for Alitalia staff in 1964.
She initially worked with well-established fashion houses such as Emilio Federico Schubert, Roberto Capucci and Rocco Barocco and debuted her first solo collection in Florence in 1972, winning over the press and buyers.
She moved to Beijing for some time and was the first Italian designer to present a collection in China, in April 1988. In 1995 she received an award from the President of Italy for her contributions to fashion and later the Marco Polo award from the Chinese government for promoting fashion in China.
Since 1980, Biagiotti had lived and worked in the countryside of Guidonia, near Rome, in the medieval castle Marco Simone, which she had restored with husband Gianni Cigna.
Their daughter Lavinia began working for the family company in 1997 and is now the creative director of the fashion house.