I had to catch my breath when I saw this vintage gown designed by Italian designer Fernando Sarmi when he was head designer for Elizabeth Arden in the 1950s.

I mean come on, isn't it just the most exquisite gown you ever did see? The skirt looks like a blanket of stars and clouds that runneth over!



A snippet from a 1965 article entitled "Bugles, Bangles, & All Woman"

"In Italy," says Count Ferdinando Sarmi, "when the oldest son tells his father he wants to be a dress designer, it's like a woman saying she intends to be a prostitute." Sarmi's own father responded by packing his son off to the university in Siena. The result was to make Sarmi, some 30 years later, the only Seventh Avenue designer who holds a doctor of law degree.

src: met museum & the fashion spot