Chino Bert
Pseudonym of
Franco Bertolotti (1932). Italian designer and illustrator. Born in
Pavia, he attended the Scientific Lyceum Taramelli. At the age of 19 he
made his début as a fashion designer with the maison Rosandré on via
Manzoni in Milan. It was 1951. The following year he tried the great
adventure: ten of his styles were presented at Palazzo Pitti. His Box
line was appreciated by only a few, such as the painter Brunetta,
Giovanni Battista Giorgini, and the journalist Irene Brin. Chino
understood that he could not be his own manager and since that time
preferred to design for others. Among these was Maria Antonelli, for 4
years. In the meanwhile, discovered by Maria Carita, who managed the
most celebrated beauty salon in the world in Paris, he began his career
as an illustrator of fashion articles for the newspaper L'Aurore and the
monthly L'Art et la Mode. In 1958, Nino Nutrizio, the director of La
Notte, Milan's evening newspaper, gave him a weekly column about fashion
entitled Per Voi Signore (For You, Ladies). At the same time he was
back in fashion design, working for both prêt-à-porter and haute couture
houses. His clients included Rina Modelli, Jole Veneziani, and Pierre
Cardin. In 1963, he began a stylistic partnership with Mila Schön and
Loris Abate: he created 20 styles that were presented at Palazzo Pitti
and, two years later, he was given the very coveted Neiman Marcus award
in New York. In 1965 he was asked to work with the débuting Fendi
sisters. It was a success again. For Mila Schön he designed the Taroni
and Terragni silks, and the wools for the wool mills Nattier and Agnona.
After a trip to Hollywood in 1973, he disappeared. Later on it would
become known that he had retired to the Benedictine monastery of Santa
Scolastica. Chino became Father Franco. He returns to fashion only
sporadically between 1984 and 1989 in order to help his friend Schön. In
the 1990s he began to paint. He passed from figurative to abstract to
informal, on the edge of a very colorful palette.