Mila Schon Fashion designer of Italian origin Date of Birth: 28.09.1915 Country: Italy

Biography of Mila Schon

Mila Schon was an Italian fashion designer known for her concise and contemporary designs that always maintained elegance through clear classical lines. She began her career by becoming the personal designer for Marella Agnelli, an icon of style and the wife of the main shareholder of Fiat. Mila was born on September 28, 1915, in Traù, a Dalmatian city which now belongs to Croatia, into a wealthy Italian aristocratic family. Mila was her childhood nickname, which she kept throughout her life.

After World War I, when Mila was still a child, her parents relocated to Italy as the lands around Vienna were redistributed. The family settled in Trieste, where Mila grew up and considered it her home. At the age of 18, Mila moved to Genoa to live with her brother and in 1946, she settled in Milan, where she met her future husband, Aurelio Schön, a precious metals trader. During the post-war period, Mila Schon could again indulge in the pleasures of wealth, becoming a client of most Parisian high fashion houses such as Balenciaga and Dior.

However, her happiness was short-lived as her husband's jewelry business collapsed, leading to the end of their marriage. Mila was left with no means and her young son Giorgio to care for. With a lack of funds to satisfy her passion for high fashion, Mila began creating her own dresses and started sewing them with the help of an experienced dressmaker in Milan at affordable prices, imitating Parisian fashion. Suddenly, Schon turned into an entrepreneur when her friends started placing private orders through her, and with her mother's assistance, she opened her own workshop in 1958.

By 1965, Mila Schon, who started with imitations of the latest Parisian trends, had progressed so far that she was invited to showcase her collection 'Onda' ('Wave') in the prestigious Sala Bianca hall at Pitti Palace in Florence. The collection consisted of 25 items in shades of purple, symbolizing the revival of Art Nouveau, and instantly became a hit. In 1966, she opened her own Fashion House in a historic palace at Via Montenapoleone. In the same year, she received the 'Fashion Oscar' award from Neiman Marcus.

One of Mila Schon's notable achievements was dressing Marcella Agnelli in a semi-transparent kaftan embroidered by Schon's craftsmen, which earned Agnelli the prize for the best dress at Truman Capote's legendary Black and White Ball at the Hotel Plaza in New York. Lee Radziwill, also in a Schon dress, took third place in the list of best-dressed guests. Agnelli, Radziwill, along with Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the Shah of Iran, and Imelda Marcos, were just a few of Mila Schon's high-profile clients. Jackie, Farah, and Imelda became the embodiment of the Schon brand, with its simple and smart elegance. In the United States, her clothing was sold in stores such as Neiman Marcus, Bonwit Teller, and Henri Bendel.

Schon became the first Italian designer to present a ready-to-wear collection in Japan, where her sense of geometry and a certain futurism were highly regarded. Throughout her career, she maintained her youthful curiosity and love for simplicity and elegance. Despite experimenting with color, form, intricate cuts, and fabrics, Schon remained true to her life motto of "Not how much, but how." She was a great admirer of contemporary painting, collecting artworks from modern masters and drawing inspiration from them in her designs. Mila Schon passed away on September 5, 2008, just three weeks before her 93rd birthday.