Well-known Italian fashion designer and businessman Nino Cerruti died on Saturday at the age of 91. The AFP news agency reported, referring to the Italian media.
Photo: SITA / AP, Bill Sikes
Italian designer and businessman Nino Cerruti pictured in 1997.
Nino Cerruti joined the clothing industry in the 1950s and founded his own fashion house in Paris in 1967. He designed fashion collections for both women and men, his specialty being wool suits, which he tried to adapt to be comfortable for everyday wear. In 1978, the Cerruti fashion house also entered the perfume market.
In the 1980s, Cerruti began working with the film industry. His clothes were worn by Michael Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Harrison Ford, Al Pacino and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Cerruti also became the official designer for the Ferrari team in Formula 1.
From 1964 to 1970, he worked for Cerruti’s designer Giorgio Armani, who later founded his own world-famous fashion empire. In 2000, Cerruti sold 51 percent of its company and since then has focused mainly on operating a family textile factory in the northern Italian town of Biella in the Piedmont region. He died at a hospital in the nearby town of Vercelli, where he was taken for hip surgery, according to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
“Nina Cerruti’s death has hit me hard. The giant of Italian business has left, “wrote the Italian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Gilberto Pichetto on Twitter. “I will always remember him for his intuition, skill and foresight, which made Italian fashion famous worldwide,” he added.
VIDEO: Let’s not only be proud of athletes, we should also be proud of our fashion