Emanuel Ungaro (13 February 1933 – 21 December 2019) was a French fashion designer who founded the eponymous fashion house in 1965. Early life Ungaro's Italian father fled to France from Francavilla Fontana of Brindisi province because of the fascist dictatorship in Italy. Ungaro's father was a tailor and he gave his son a sewing machine when he was young. The House of Emanuel Ungaro At the age of 22, Ungaro moved to Paris. Three years later he began designing for the House of Cristóbal Balenciaga for three years before quitting to work for Courrèges. Four years later, in 1965 with the assistance of Swiss artist Sonja Knapp and Elena Bruna Fassio, Ungaro opened his own fashion house in Paris. During the mid- to late 1960s, Ungaro was known as one of the Space Age designers, along with Andre Courrèges, Pierre Cardin, Paco Rabanne, Rudi Gernreich, Jean-Marie Armand, and Diana Dew, creating ultra-modern, futuristic clothing of stark simplicity consisting of flaring, mini-length garments of geometric shape in welt-seamed double-faced wools, synthetics, plastics, and metals worn with high boots, helmets, visors, and chrome and plastic jewelry. His womenswear designs of the 1970s were noted for their exuberant mixing of colorful prints. He experimented with a few silhouettes and styles in the early part of the decade before settling in to the voluminous, layered, peasant-based styles known as the Big Look or Soft Look that dominated high fashion from 1974 to 1978, Ungaro's print mixtures fitting well into the period's multi-layer esthetic. He didn't adopt the big Fall 1978 change to big shoulders and narrow skirts until 1979, but during the 1980s he would reach a pinnacle of success and influence with his versions of it. Ungaro entered perhaps his most influential period in the 1980s, as he interpreted the era's aggressive, broad-shouldered women's silhouette with Edwardian-style shirring, ruching, draping, and his trademark eye-catching prints to create a voluptuous, very feminine, even coquettish look that was highly popular with the public. Ungaro launched his first menswear collection, Ungaro Uomo, in 1973, and his first perfume, Diva, 10 years later in 1983. Ungaro was a participant in The Battle of Versailles Fashion Show held on 28 November 1973. Later followed the perfumes Senso (1987), Ungaro (1991) and Emanuel Ungaro For Men (1991). In 1996, he formed a partnership with Salvatore Ferragamo. In 1997, Ungaro, Ferragamo and Bulgari created a new company: Emanuel Ungaro