IPhotographer Richard Avedon said: «Isa Stoppi is the most beautiful woman in the world». He said: “He had two lakes for eyes.” The funeral in the church of San Vincenzo de ‘Paoli in Milan has just finished and Bedy Moratti is too moved to say more than a few words which, however, tell a world and an era that have just lost one of their latest icons. Bedy says: «It is clear to everyone that Isa Stoppi was beautiful, but she was also witty and intelligent. And it was good ». Isa, who passed away after a long illness, was one of the first Italian top models. His face was on the covers of Vogue e Harper’s Bazaar throughout the 1960s. In 1972, he married the industrialist Gian Germano Giuliani, the one of the medicinal amaro, whose first wife was Bedy himself, but affection and friendship have always linked the two women and their children. And yesterday Isa was planted by a Milan made up of great industrialists, stylists, photographers, but because she was everyone’s friend, she had a good word or a funny joke for everyone and not just because she was a beautiful woman.
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Who was
She was born in Tripoli, Libya, raised in Fiorenzuola D’Adda, in the Piacentino area. She never let her age leak out, something that only true divas can and she was a diva for a short, unforgettable, dazzling season. In 1962, he had represented Italy at Miss Universe. Two years later, the photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri had her take off her bangs to get her gaze out, put a real python around her neck and took a photo that takes her to the empyrean of the models of the time. In New York, Isa is a favorite of Diana Vreeland and hers Vogue. Remembers Benedetta Barzini, another top of the time: «There were five Italians at Diana’s court: me, Isa, Marina Schiano, Alberta Tiburzi, Mirella Petteni. It had never happened before nor will it happen after there was a group of Italians of the same rank. I was not very curious, I never asked any of them why they were in New York. I simply thought they had ended up there, like me: by pure chance. There was, between us, the spirit of sharing something unique, but at least I didn’t hang out with them off set. In the evening, I would come back to Cinderella, some, like Isa and Mirella, continued to be goddesses and supermodels in trendy clubs ». Those five in their twenties were what Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell would have been in the 90s, except that in their day they didn’t count the catwalks yet, but the photos of Avedon, Barbieri, Irving Penn, Milton Greene or Bert Stern. Anna Recordati, who will be one of Isa’s closest friends, had started later and had been a mannequin before marrying the pharmaceutical industrialist: «We always saw each other, we had children together, our families have always been close. She was beautiful, but her gift was irony. In times when women were easily rivals, she has always been supportive. It was modern.
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Independence
We were united by being independent: we both left home at 18 and supported ourselves by working. Then we got married, she continued to work for until the arrival of the second child Vogue as a fashion editor. We had wonderful, international years: we were at Studio 54 in New York or at Annabel’s in London. To say it today, all that privilege out of place, I know ». Isa, as a young girl, in New York, dated Frank Sinatra, Maria Callas, Dustin Hoffman. It is said she was courted by Ted Kennedy. Today, the family dedicated an advertising page to her on the Courier service. There is a famous photo of him and the words “Ciao Isa”. Gian Germano Giuliani, to whom she gave two children, and from whom she had been divorced for some time, wrote in the obituary: «Your beauty was the mirror of your life».
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November 16, 2020 (change November 16, 2020 | 23:00)
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