Chiara Boni, how important was love to you?
«If fashion gave birth to me, love brought me to life. In my time, girls didn’t work, we were raised to marry, learn to set the table and speak English, French and German.”
We live in the 1950s, the Florentine upper class, divorce is imminent, but she will have two marriages, famous flirtations and great loves. What did you dream about as a child?
“I was an only child, a lonely child who dreamed a lot. Trivial things, Prince Charming. The dream stopped at the point where I imagined how I was dressed when I met him.
The perfect Prince Charming dress?
“Strict at the front, low-cut at the back.” A dress like this would make me a fortune in 1984: I designed it for Laura Bernabei, who was organizing a party for Giorgio Armani, Emmanuel Ungaro and Valentino, the three brands produced by Gft. The dress caught the attention of Marco Rivetti, who created Made in Italy with Gft and wanted to buy my brand.”
To whom does he owe his sentimental upbringing?
“It was a unique case for my mother, who separated in 1949. I was a year old. He lived by love and I owe all my freedom to his example.
How did you discover freedom?
“1967 in London. After my 18th birthday ball, my mother let me go and improve my English as long as my nanny accompanied me. It was a year of extraordinary openings. I arrived dressed like a good girl from a good family, but at Biba on Abingdon Road I bought clothes I had never seen before: scandalously short and in crazy colors.”
Is London also the city of first love?
“To be clear, I arrived a virgin and the boys preferred to court English women who were more available. But it was a crazy time, I spent the evenings in clubs where I met the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The autobiography “Io che nasco fantasiaria,” written with Daniela Fedi and published by Baldini+Castoldi, is the portrait of a girl who subverts the aesthetic but also sentimental canon of an era. Was it clear from her first love that she would be unconventional in everything?
“In the swimming pool at the Florence Tennis Club I saw a boy with incredibly blue eyes and a long beard and long hair. It was Vittorio Maschietto, known as Titti, a member of the 1960s, the first person I interacted with. He studied architecture and founded the UFOs that invaded the streets with inflatable rockets during university occupations. My friends rejected it, I fell in love with it. We got married, but we fought all the time.
What were you arguing about?
“For stupid things and because Titti was my Pygmalion, there was competition: I wanted to develop myself, have a say, and he ascribed to himself a kind of moral superiority.” During these years I had founded my first brand, You Tarzan Me Jane, during Tarzan says the opposite in the movie, Me Tarzan you Jane: Mine was a woman who refused to be defined by a man.”
How revolutionary had she become out of love?
“We printed the newspaper Potere Operaio, I arranged the characters on the page and invested the profits of the boutique in this company.”
Did it end because of political disagreements?
“It ended because he theorized the open couple, but we remained on excellent terms and co-hosted a Raitre lecture, The Dilemma.”
What did he do with his newfound freedom?
“In Florence I closed the shop in the Palazzo Corsini, which had achieved a little fame, Veruschka, the top, had also come. We are at the end of the 70s. I go to Milan and open a small shop on Via Bigli with Amalia Castellina, and fashion journalists start publishing my clothes in magazines. Then a partner from Carpi takes over and there, in the province, I understand, nice and separate, that I was considered a family destroyer. I was very disappointed, but in Sardinia I saw again a youthful admirer, Daniele Boatti, now married, and I fell in love.”
Was leaving your wife part of the plan?
“He said it. But I spent Christmas with her and met Vittorio Sgarbi in Cortina. I was fascinated by the way he talked about art, and that same evening he kidnapped me and had a museum opened for me at night. It was six or eight very fun months. He also took me to Ro Ferrarese to eat tortellini with my mother.
Was it a great love?
“He wasn’t really in love. I liked him a lot, I keep the letters he wrote me, but I think he had at least seven other women.
However, according to legend, she leaves him and Vittorio comes into her house and kicks down the door.
“It's not a legend, it's true.” But he did it out of pride: he didn't like being abandoned. I left him because I missed Daniele. Afterwards I was at Chenot's in Meran when Daniele called and said: I'm coming with you. But he has an accident and dies. Instead, Vittorio comes and says to me: It's over, I can't compete with a dead man.
Cesare Romiti was also married.
“But he had been with Michi Gioia for many years, I never saw him as married. In any case, many people think that Gft bought my company because I was with him, but the opposite is true: I met him because I was already with Gft. At first I didn't realize he was courting me. He was a powerful man, much older than me. “I fell in love with his love: he called ten times a day, crossed out the dates in my diary and said: 'We're going to Paris this weekend.' At that time, Mani Pulite was the turning point of our love.”
What does Mani Pulite have to do with it?
“Shortly before, at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, he had denounced the interference of political parties in companies. And when Antonio Di Pietro asked him to talk, I said to him: Go and help him clean. But I was just naive. We stayed together for four more years, but it wasn't the same as before.
What sets him apart in love?
“I don’t fight for my rights, I fight for my thoughts, never for money.”
Instead, he fought to get his company back.
“While I was breaking up with Cesare, Gft was having financial difficulties, I was struggling to buy back Chiara Boni. And in the meantime I worked as a local councilor in Tuscany and met Angelo Rovati.”
Her second husband.
'For a month he traveled from Bologna to Florence every evening to have dinner with me. He won me over with his attention.
Did she do something crazy in love?
“For Angelo, the madness was being his nurse for twelve years. We married when he was given a life expectancy of six months, then he lived another twelve years. After the first of eight surgeries, I kicked out the nurses and decided I would be there for him. When I think about how bad he has been in the last few days, I tell myself that if it happens to me, I will go to Switzerland to die.
What does your current partner Fabrizio Rindi think?
“I don’t think he agrees with it.”
How do you love as an adult?
“Love and reason unite, one loves, one supports the other and does not want to change the other.”
Did she remain a feminist?
“Feminist, but feminine. I continue to believe that sweetness helps in life.”