Provocative designer: Who is Franco Moschino?

He was born in the town of Abbiategrasso, near Milan. His family owned an iron foundry, which they hoped Franco would also work in. However, Moschino was interested in the fine arts and aspired to be a painter. He escaped from his home to Milan in 1968 and enrolled at the Marangoni Institute. He did not have the financial and moral support of his family and started working as an illustrator in fashion houses and magazines to finance his education. After completing his studies in 1971, he worked as an illustrator for Gianni Versace for six years. He then designed for the Italian brand Cadette from 1977 to 1982. He then founded his own company, Moonshadow, and created the Moschino brand in 1983.

Franco Moschino (27 February 1950 – 18 September 1994) was an Italian fashion designer best known as the founder of the Italian fashion house Moschino. He was born in Abbiategrasso, Lombardy, located c. 22 km from Milan. 

Influenced by the surrealist and Dadaist art movements of the 1920s, Moschino has aesthetically expressed his provocative criticisms of the "Fashion system" and capitalism in his designs and advertising campaigns since the day he founded his brand. According to Moschino, the system consisted of arrogant people who took fashion too seriously. He wanted to break these arrogant people and the taboos they brought with them with the advertising campaign "Stop the Fashion System". One example of Moschino's provocative approach to fashion was wearing a t-shirt with the words "Moschifo" in his photograph in Vogue magazine ('schifo' means "disgust" in Italian).

Moschino liked to make fun of classic pieces that represented status in the fashion world, especially adorning jacket designs similar to Chanel's classic tweed jacket with bottle caps or pins. Likewise, instead of the gold chain decorations we are accustomed to seeing from Chanel, on the waist of a classic red jacket, he added the ironic slogan "Waist of Money" (which means "waste of money" in English) embroidered with gold thread. Because of these actions targeting Chanel, the fashion house even sued the provocative designer.

Franco Moschino reflected his provocative side not only in his designs but also in his fashion show shows. It's not uncommon for his to run his models back and forth, or to hand out tomatoes to the audience before the show and let them throw in designs they don't like.

In 1994, he introduced the Eco-couture collection, which was created from environmentally friendly materials and used ecological fur. Franco Moschino, who died at a very young age the same year, was succeeded by his life partner and assistant Rossella Jardini as creative director. Over the years, the Moschino brand has continued its provocative legacy, bringing its unique design language to new generations with pop art symbols and kitsch accessories.