Luisa Beccaria

Luisa Beccaria has always loved fashion – it seemed the perfect vehicle for her to express her romantic vision and personality. It is reflected in the dreamy style that characterizes the Italian designer’s dresses: romantic, elegant and glamorous.

She was only twenty years old when she was offered the chance to exhibit and sell her designs in Piero Fornasetti’s art gallery in Milan. Everything was snapped up in three days. Her pastime had become a job, without her even having the time to realize it.

Soon Luisa organized more exhibitions and newspapers started taking an interest in her work. She began getting orders from shops and that soon led to her first fashion show in Milan. Everybody was talking about Luisa Beccaria, and she was on her way.

In 1984, she opened her first store in Via Madonnina, Milan, the location of one of her first fashion shows. Soon she had opened another store for children’s clothes and in 1991 she opened the Luisa Beccaria store and showroom in Milan’s Brera district where she was able to experiment and to work on special made to measure clothes.

Luisa has always felt very close to the world of the arts and this has led her to set her shows in art galleries, historic courtyards, and public streets. She is particularly inspired by the rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard and German Franz Xaver Winterhalter. She loves iridescent and undefined colors, draped fabrics, atmosphere, the harmony of nature. In her creations she imaginatively expresses her vision and her cultural experiences in a romantic, glamorous feminine way.

Luisa Beccaria’s name became so famous that in 1991 she was invited to take part in the ‘Alta Moda’ shows in Rome, where she worked alongside renowned fashion designers such as Valentino and Versace, with whom she took part in haute couture shows in Paris from 1993 to 1995. Luisa immediately fell in love with the French capital and presented her collection regularly on the Parisian catwalks. She loves going back there for inspiration.

In the 90s Luisa’s clothing caught the eye of the French fashion house Chloe, where she was offered the position of women’s ready to wear designer but she went her own way and chose instead to create her own ready to wear line.

Romance and fairy tales are the main themes not only of her collections, but of her private life too. At the beginning of her career she literally met her own Prince Charming in the form of Sicilian aristocrat Lucio Bonaccorsi, who is now her husband. They have five children, and live in an 18th century castle in Sicily (when she is not working in Milan).

The princess of the catwalk is also the princess of the red carpet: more and more celebrities and stars are wearing Luisa Beccaria’s dresses, from actresses like Nicole Kidman, Uma Thurman and Angelina Jolie, to singers and pop stars such as Madonna and Rihanna.

Luisa Beccaria’s success has meant the worldwide expansion of her fashion empire. She has opened three shops in Italy, Russia and Australia and her clothing line is in almost fifty stores on five continents. Recently she has added men’s and children’s collections and in 2009 she even “dressed” a car, the C3 Picasso, for the French company Citroën.

An example for all the women of the world, she still runs her empire alone. Luisa Beccaria really has managed to translate the magic of her life into the magic of her dresses.

Luisa Beccaria