Description
Giorgio di Sant'Angelo (1933-1989) was an Italian-American fashion designer based in New York. His fashion design career began
in the mid-1960s with textiles and accessories and as a stylist on magazine photo shoots. He started his own fashion line
in 1968 and continuously produced clothing collections until his death. He was best known for his early and innovative use
of stretch fabrics. The Giorgio di Sant'Angelo papers contain the designer's personal correspondence and photographs; diaries;
early design work; drawings, designs, and photographs of his work in fashion and in other areas of design; and press and public
appearance material.
Background
Giorgio di Sant'Angelo (1933-1989) was an Italian-American designer. Born Count Jorge Alberto Imperatrice di Sant'Angelo e
Ratti di Desio in Florence, Italy, he was raised in Argentina and Brazil, and then trained as an architect and industrial
designer in Italy. Encouraged by his grandmother, he also studied art, ceramics and sculpture in Spain and France, under Pablo
Picasso among others. In 1962, he moved to California for an animation fellowship at Walt Disney Studios. He soon after relocated
to New York in the mid-1960s, and began working in many areas of design, including industrial, textile, and interior design.
One of his projects, avant-garde Lucite jewelry and other accessory designs for DuPont, appeared in many fashion magazine
photo shoots of the time. Sant'Angelo became a stylist on some of the photo shoots, earning wide acclaim for his designs in
the July 1968 issue of Vogue, which featured a portfolio of model Veruschka photographed by Franco Rubartelli in the Arizona
desert, clothed in reams of colorful fabric, fur, and ropes improvised by Sant'Angelo. The same year he launched his career
as a fashion designer with a collection based upon the desert shoot's psychedelic, "gypsy" style, for which he won a COTY
award. Two years later, in 1970, he won another COTY award for his collection paying homage to Native Americans. During the
1970s and 1980s, he continuously produced clothing collections. Sant'Angelo was best known for the creativity and versatility
of his designs as well as his early and innovative use of stretch fabrics, such as Lycra, encouraging freedom of movement.
He considered himself an "engineer of color and form" instead of a "fashion designer." He had a loyal clientele, including
celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Carol Channing, and Lena Horne, for all of whom Sant'Angelo also designed performance wardrobes.
While creating fashion collections, he still designed accessories and had his own lines of home furnishing designs and environmental
fragrances. In 1989 he died of lung cancer. His fashion business continued for a few years afterward under the management
of Sant'Angelo's long-time partner and business associate Martin Price.
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library,
Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of
the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the
copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC
Regents do not hold the copyright.