on gina, in 1954

gina lollobrigida was 5'5" and reportedly 36-22-35. the italian press called her the italian volcano. they took her measurements every time she landed at an airport.

in 1954 she was filming la donna più bella del mondo, playing the opera singer lina cavalieri. the costumes were elaborate, the corsets were real, the silhouette was historical. she wore them for fourteen hour shoots, ate lunch in them, gave interviews in them, walked off set in them at midnight.

we keep returning to her not because we want anyone to look like her. we return to her because she understood what most of contemporary dressmaking has forgotten — that the body in a dress is a collaboration. she let the architecture do its work, and then she lived her whole italian life inside of it.

she retired from acting and became a sculptor. when she died, she left behind her own art and her own version of the silhouette.

that is the standard.