understanding the time
A deep and careful observer and connoisseur of female style and the feminine, Marucelli antedated trends and styles with her dresses. Linea Gentile (1943–1949), Plissé (1949–1950), Impero (1950–1952), Fraticello (1954/55), Crisalide (1956/57), Pannocchia (1957), Vescovo (1960), Assira (1962), Scollo a tuffo (1963), Optical (1965), Unisex (1966/67), Totem (1967/68), Alluminio (1968/69) and Saio (1971) are all groundbreaking collections, internationally celebrated and coveted.
From 1943 to 1949, Germana Marucelli worked on a new series of dresses known as Linea Gentile. Completely removed from French canons, the line anticipated post-war fashion and trends.
«Throughout all of 1946, Germana worked on her Linea Gentile…».
Fernanda Pivano
«… presented in Milan her first dresses inspired by Renaissance art… where the pleated organdie fabric blends in with the grooves of classical columns. This reference to the historical and artistic tradition as a source of inspiration and guarantee of quality is reflected in Germana Marucelli’s words when she reasserts her confidence in Italian
fashion…».
A. Fiorenti Capitani and S. Ricci
«Linea Impero really broke new ground and was the basis of Germana Marucelli’s whole collection. The 1951 woman may be wary of an Impero-inspired dress, but she would be well advised to lower her guard because this line is an interpretation that perfectly fits with our day and its demands. The waist of the dress does not cancel out the wearer’s…
it is reassuring in terms of harmony
and measurement».
Donna, September 1951
«Germana Marucelli has designed the whole collection around Linea Fraticello, which clearly draws on the fifteenth century. The intriguing colours are sometimes inspired by frescoes; actually, in the case of the very light drape, they faithfully reproduce the effect of wall paintings. We see the red of Paolo Uccello, the green of Masaccio and the blues of Beato Angelico. These delicate, sophisticated hues are complemented by Marucelli with a vast array of greys, blues, steel, copper, green and bronze».
Il potere della stampa, July 1954
«Linea Crisalide is Marucelli’s very own discovery. As a woman of letters, she treats fabrics and other similar things as though they were stories or poems. This collection unfolds seamlessly like the transition from grub to butterfly. But it should be noted that this has nothing to do with the female character – rather, it establishes the eternal levity and the eternally multifaceted nature of eternal femininity».
La Prealpina, September 1956
«Germana Marucelli has always perceived her work as true artistic expression. To her, dressing a woman means finding the exact correspondence – something always there but not for everyone to find – between lines and colours, so that nothing is left to chance, not even a single fold or button. Everything is based on sensitive and living harmony. … Linea Pannocchia is also the answer to a demand for modernity, stylization and movement. The outcome is an original but never extravagant collection, full of liveliness but also of constructive logic; daring but not abstract».
Marisa Rusconi,
in Alto Adige, March 1957
«Art and fashion truly are part of the same, full-circle ring. The former inspires the latter and then the latter inspires the former. Bishops’ copes have inspired sculptor Giacomo Manzù to create beautiful, entirely closed and harmonically accomplished forms. Dressmaker Germana Marucelli has, in turn, drawn inspiration from the cardinals of Manzù for her highly acclaimed collection. Little women with high mitres and non-existent shoulders, covered by severe and precious capes, have modelled like fragile idols».
Eleonora Mattei,
in Vie Nuove, February 1960
«Since the fifteenth century – and this is the age I refer to spiritually’ – ‘the page was the boy initiated to chivalrous life. My pages – a French architecture student, an American hitchhiker and two Italians – aren’t rebels but, rather, tasteful and well-mannered boys; their hair is long but not exceedingly so; and they dress imaginatively but with a conscious choice of cut and style».
Germana Marucelli quoted
by Pia Soli, Il mattino, July 1966
at others on an unprecedented nuance of blue that falls between rust and
sick green, between amethyst
and turquoise».
Lucia Sollazzo, in Il Gazzettino Veneziano, July 1967
