Roberto Capucci: Couturier as artist

Maybe you've never heard of Roberto Capucci, but you know his work.

That's because the silhouette of one of his grandest legacies - the Bocciolo - has been echoed in the later work of designers you know well: Valentino, Yves St. Laurent, and Oscar de la Renta.

He debuted that piece, known better as the Bud Dress, in Florence in 1956.

The cocktail-length dress with its super-cinched waist blooms into a voluminous layered skirt resembling rose petals - and it's one of 83 pieces composing the Philadelphia Museum of Art's costume exhibition "Roberto Capucci: Art Into Fashion," which opens Wednesday.

"Capucci was doing this kind of sculptural work in the 1950s before everybody," said Clara Henry, director of the fashion design program at Philadelphia University. "I look at his pieces and I'm in awe, simply in awe. He's not known to the mass market, but he has been such an inspirational source."

Although Capucci's post-World War II tailored suits; structural, iridescent-lined capes; and uniquely shaped gowns made him popular with actresses Marilyn Monroe, Esther Williams, and Gloria Swanson and helped launch him as a patriarch of modern-day Italian fashion, they make up only the first half of this bold retrospective of his work.

The other half of the show is dedicated to the maestro's clothing as sculpture, featuring sweeping, larger-than-life gowns that are more art than apparel.

It's these silken wonders that catapulted the now-80-year-old designer to the realm of European fashion genius. But one can also argue that those extreme styles - which Capucci called sculpture - are the reason he is far from a household name here.

Fashioned from Italian silks in sharp, jewel-toned greens, yellows, pinks, and reds, these nature-inspired floor-length pieces overflow with pleats, ruching, and gathering. Sleeves just don't bell, they billow and blossom. Hemlines dramatically zig up and zag down, appearing boundaryless.

Adornments are amazing. One chocolate brown gown is covered with handmade silken leaves that drape the torso in autumnal shades. The dress is reminiscent of an overstuffed cornucopia.

"Do I admire him? I bow to him," exclaimed Philadelphia-born fashion designer Ralph Rucci, the only U.S.-based designer ever to be invited to present at the Paris haute couture shows.

"He would blend the most vibrant, enormous, stark colors together. But he controlled their overpowering nature and made them his own. To see these pieces . . . . They are incredible."