FALL WINTER COLLECTION 2011-2012
Avon Celli, a knitwear brand founded in 1922 by Pasquale Celli, has always been synonymous with quality and exclusive products. The founder's idea of converting 36-gauge stocking looms for fine and sophisticated knitwear is still the distinctive feature of the collection, totally produced in Italy in the high artisanal quality factory in Longastrino. The uniqueness of Avon Celli lies in the long-standing history of its looms and the quality of the fibres: cashmere, extra-fine merinos wools, the rare selected Tasmanian super 150’s 16 micron, and the wool, silk and cashmere blends
THE COMPANY
The twenties. In these years Pasquale Celli founded his company and created the Avon brand, in 1922 to be exact. Pasquale Celli was an ingenious, irresistibly funny man. He loved social events and he perfectly embodied the high society atmosphere which characterised those years.
BATHING SUITS
On a summer’s day at the beach, Pasquale Celli had an intuition: men and women who until then had been caged in very chaste bathing suits featuring long sleeves and ankle-length trousers were to be freed. He envisaged revolutionising the bathing suit: he cut the trousers and the sleeves, creating a new model, which was quite scandalous at the time.
STOCKINGS
After the Second World War, Pasquale Celli had his most important intuition: to use stocking looms to create ultra fine knitwear. At the time in fact, in addition to bathing suits and pullovers, Avoncelli also produced stockings, using very thin looms. This intuition gave way to ultra-light knitwear, a great innovation in global knitwear. In order to obtain this kind of lightness using fine materials such as cashmere, Avoncelli distanced itself from the classic English production of thick, carded cashmere and invented a yarn composed of cashmere and silk, which was woven on 36 gauge looms, extraordinary machines which are still unparalleled today.
KNITWEAR
In the fifties, Avon Celli broke into the US market, thanks to Giuseppe Battaglia, a business man from Calabria and owner of a prestigious boutique in Milan. After having been a pioneer of modern product placement by giving Avon sweaters to all the celebrities that stayed at Villa d’Este, Battaglia decided to present the brand in America in a very unusual and surprising way: he toured the most important cities by camper, inviting the most important buyers and clients to taste a plate of spaghetti cooked by himself, thereby slyly combining two of the most renowned Italian excellencies: fashion and pasta.
HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES
In a short lapse of time, the Avon Celli collections became an elitist status symbol for the most important names of the cinema and entertainment worlds in Hollywood, and of the culture and jet-set worlds in New York.
During the years, Avon Celli won over famous names such as Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable, Grace Kelly, King Hassan II from Morocco, Sophia Loren and Gianni Agnelli. Tradition has it that Picasso also loved to paint while wearing his striped, knitted Avon Celli polo shirts.
YVES SAINT LAURENT
One of the brightest stars in the fashion world was without a doubt Christian Dior. Pasquale Celli signed his first licensing agreement with him in 1955. Thanks to the company’s extraordinary talent, Avoncelli produced dresses and knitwear for him for two years, and subsequently also for his heirs, Gaston Berthelot and Yves Saint Laurent.