Giacomo Puccini called her “Bicchi” and, in time, everybody called her Biki, thanks to the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, who transformed her childhood nickname into something exotic. “I’m just a seamstress,” Elvira Leonardi Bouyeure once said, the inventor of the “Made in Italy” label, stylist to Maria Callas, Sofia Loren and Brigitte Bardot. Her golden childhood was marked by the influence of huge cultural giants on her upbringing. Characters like Giacomo Puccini, to her “Nonno Tato”, her grandmother’s second husband. When she met, in Paris, art collector Robert Boyeure, her future husband, Biki came into contact with the fashion world and was immediately bewitched. Her constant contact with this world, after one voyage to Paris after another, gave her the idea of turning her natural fashion sense into a creative vocation. Thus, in 1934, she opened her first atelier. At her Milanese studio at Via Senato 8, the first styles inspired by Parisian fashion began to appear, designed and manufactured by Gina Cicogna and Biki, who quickly became convinced that their creations were destined to dress women everywhere. The combination of colours (eccentric for the time), such as blue and green, soon became a trademark of her unmistakable style.
After the resounding success of the 2023 European tour which sold over 1.6 million tickets and earned widespread acclaim as one of the best shows of the band's career, Bruce Springsteen returns to Milan for two dates at San Siro.
Ugo Rondinone in Milan: Nostalgia and the Desire for Redemption
The exhibition, between social redemption and existential reflections, offers a journey into the personal history of Ugo Rondinone and his family, originally from Matera, as well as into collective memory.
Atoui explores the acoustic properties and specific ways in which elements such as bronze, water, glass and stone transmit and reflect sound. Using electronic instruments and custom-built computers, the artist reflects on current social and political realities.
