MILANO: The Inside Story of Italian Fashion A Film by John Maggio

Giorgio Armani, the man known as «The King of Italian Fashion,» was set to lead a glittering array of Italian fashion and Hollywood celebrities on Sunday night, February 25, at the VIP Red Carpet Preview of John Maggio’s new film, MILANO: The Inside Story of Italian Fashion.

MILANO stars Giorgio Armani, Sharon Stone and Tom Ford. Mr Armani, who founded his brand in 1975, is a key protagonist in the new film, which features fashion stars telling the story of the birth of Italian fashion and its explosion in the 1980s and 1990s.

Among others expected at the gala event were the Mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, plus Gianni Versace’s brother Santo, fashion and Hollywood icon Marisa Berenson, film star Greta Ferro, Keira Kennedy, Celina Locks and supermodels Eva Herzigova. The film features Sharon Stone, Lauren Hutton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Frances McDormand, among others.

Also attending the film’s debut were some of the grand names of Italian fashion dynasties like Ermenegildo Zegna, Matteo Marzotto, Costanza e Veronica Etro, Domenico De Sole, former Gucci CEO and today President of Tom Ford International, which was just sold to Estée Lauder.

The Red Carpet event was also attended by John Maggio, the Emmy Award-winning director of MILANO. Also attending were co-producer partners Eagle Pictures and 3MarysEntertainment, as well as the film’s co-writer and Executive Producer Giuseppe Pedersoli. The film was co-written and produced by Alan Friedman.

Mr Friedman said the film was made possible thanks to the generous financial support of Intesa Sanpaolo, its principal partner, and by Campari, the beverage group which makes the iconic Italian red aperitif, as main sponsor. “It has been a long journey making this film over the past three years, before, during, and after Covid,” Friedman recalled. He said “I hope that people around the world will enjoy seeing the real protagonists of Italian fashion telling their own stories to camera” and he promised the film also contained “plenty of revelations involving the House of Gucci and the House of Versace.”

 

MILANO was described by The New York Times as “Half nostalgia trip and half corrective to the narratives disseminated by docudramas like Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” and Ryan Murphy’s “Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

MILANO also contains the most intimate portrait of Giorgio Armani ever seen. The link between Hollywood and Milan fashion is a big part of this film, and in MILANO the protagonists tell their own stories about how they used Hollywood to conquer the American market.

Lauren Hutton talks about her experience in American Gigolo with Richard Gere, and we learn about the relationships between celebrities and designers. Sharon Stone provides a surprising performance as fashion critic, while Frances McDormand offers eloquent insight into the mysteries of the Italian fashion capital, and speaks of her “performance art” project together with Valentino designer Pierpaolo Piccioli. The anecdotes and commentary from Helen Mirren and Samuel L. Jackson enrich the storytelling and provide revealing insights. Tom Ford emerges as one of the key narrative voices in the film, as does British fashion editor Suzy Menkes.

The film’s running time is 90 minutes.

The film is directed by U.S. director John Maggio, winner of an Emmy Award for the HBO documentary Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis. The executive producer and co- writer is Giuseppe Pedersoli, whose latest film The Truth about ‘La Dolce Vita’, was recently presented out of competition at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. The film is co-written and produced by Alan Friedman, an author, journalist and documentarian who also produced My Way: The Rise and Fall of Silvio Berlusconi for Netflix. The Editors include Joe LaMattina and Marco Spoletini, the award-winning long-time collaborator of Italian director Matteo Garrone. The Director of Photography is Federico Teoldi.

The film is co-produced by Beaver Lake Pictures, Eagle Pictures and 3Mary Entertainment, in association with Ark Media, Mr. Maggio’s New York company. The film is represented by Submarine Entertainment’s Josh Braun.