Fashion Designer. Fiorucci was a fashion designer and retail visionary whose designs and ideas encapsulated the flamboyance of the disco era and helped launch the careers of other designers and artists. At age 17, he went to work in his father’s shoe boutique before opening his own store in Milan in 1967. In 1970, he introduced his namesake fashion label, built largely on stretch jeans and T-shirts decorated with the twin winged cherubs that would become the brand logo. By 1976 he had opened several stores including his flagship New York location on East 59th Street which became a breeding ground for upstarts of the fashion and art worlds, among them Betsey Johnson and Anna Sui and painters Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, whose works were ostentatiously displayed. Fiorucci was among the first to enlist D.J.s to spin music at his store while clients such as Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lauren Bacall and Yves Saint Laurent shopped. Andy Warhol was a regular and launched Interview magazine at the store. By the early 1980’s, Fiorucci ran into distribution problems and was forced to shut his flagship store in New York and in 1989 the company filed for bankruptcy. In 1996, he pleaded guilty to charges of bankruptcy fraud and falsifying company reports to increase the value of the company at the expense of his creditors and was sentenced by an Italian court to a suspended prison term of 22 months. In 2004, he founded a new brand called Love Therapy which is still successful today. Fiorucci died unexpectedly of natural causes. (bio by: Louis M.)