Ken Scott

TEXT BY SHAHIDHA BARI, FEDERICO CHIARA, PIERRE LÉONFORTE, RENATA MOLHO, AND ISA TUTINO PHOTOGRAPHS BY GUIDO TARONI

Known as the gardener of fashion, Ken Scott designed large-scale owers that blossomed on fabrics and whole outts and have recently been rediscovered in Gucci’s Epilogue collection.

The American fashion designer Ken Scott was a masterful creator of fabrics, mapping out owers with romanticism and multiplying them as he transformed them into something that stood out and reected his eclectic personality. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Scott moved to Milan in the 1950s, where he pioneered many colorful patterned fabrics and collections and founded the Falconetto brand. Known for bright oral patterns with peonies, roses, poppies, sunowers, petunias, and asters, Scott followed a maximalist design philosophy when it came to his vibrant line. In the 1960s, he is said to have been one of the rst designers to showcase calf-length skirts in his collection, while in 1970s he rose to fame because of his oral-printed suits for both men and women and unisex catwalks. They called him “the fashion gardener,” but he was so many things: a gifted painter, an experimental restaurateur, an ingenious textile artist, and one of the most brilliant design savants of the twentieth century.

Edited with the Ken Scott Foundation, including an interview with Alessandro Michele, this book provides an in-depth exploration of his archives and reects his imagination for everything from loungewear and luggage to silk scarves and swimsuits, all joyfully splashed with his colors, sunowers, poppies, petunias, and peonies.

Shahidha Bari is professor of fashion cultures and histories at London College of Fashion. Federico Chiara is a journalist and Culture Editor at Vogue Italia. Pierre Léonforte is a journalist based in Paris and Milan, regular contributor to Vanity Fair France and Marie Claire Maison. Renata Molho is a journalist, essayist and former fashion critic for the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Isa Tutino Vercelloni is a journalist and essayist who contributes to publications such as L’Espresso and Corriere della Sera.

DESIGN

384 pages, 9½ x 13½" 350 color illustrations Hardcover • 9788891835130 $125.00 USD, $170.00 CAD, £92.50 GBP November 8, 2022 Rights: World

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