PIERO TOSI

(10 April 1927 - 10 August 2019)

The Italian film costume designer Piero Tosi, who has died of natural causes aged 92, was the first costume designer to win an honorary Academy Award. The citation in 2014 called him “a visionary whose incomparable costume designs shaped timeless, living art in motion pictures.” Noted for his painstaking research into historical costume, his crowning achievement was Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963) which called for hundreds of elaborate costumes, in particular for the grand ball scenes. Tosi was born in Florence where his father was a metalworker. Piero, however, had other ideas with his love for theatre, the movies and costumes. He was discovered by fellow art student Franco Zeffirelli who introduced Tosi to Visconti who then employed him on his theatre productions. His first three film commissions from 1951 were all for Visconti – Bellissima, Senso and White Nights. He worked again with Visconti on Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, The Stranger, The Damned, Death in Venice, Ludwig and The Innocent. He also worked with other high-profile directors such as Mauro Bolognini, Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Ḗdouard Molinaro, Marco Ferreri, Louis Malle, Liliana Cavani, Vittorio De Sica, Roger Vadim, Pasolini, Fellini and Zeffirelli. He received five other Oscar nominations for his designs and was the winner of two Baftas, for Death in Venice and Zeffirelli’s La Traviata, among many other international awards.

MICHAEL DARVELL