Prince of Prints

If Emilio Pucci is not a Renaissance man, he is doing one of the best imitations around. A Florentine marchese with a pedigree dating to Donatello, the designer, artist, sportsman, politician and resort-hopper has etched his name into the fashion lexicon of the decade. With the opening of a one-man show of silkscreens, tapestry rugs and sculptures in New York last week, Pucci, at 54, seems about to do for walls and floors what he has done for fashionable women on five continents--swathe them in splinters and swirls of color.

Color is what Pucci is all about. Whether it be palazzo pajamas, shirts and skirts, or scarves and body stockings, Pucci brands his artifacts with a kaleidoscope of shades and hues. What makes his performance all the more bravura (and saves him nearly $100,000 a year in samples) is his ability to visualize some 80 different colors in his mind. Like do-it-yourself, fill-in-the-numbers paintings, his designs go off to the factory as line drawings spotted with the numbers of his private rainbow. Invariably, he is pleased with the result. Seeing his Argentine-woven rugs ($700 to $1,500 each) for the first time last week, he remarked simply: "I find these rather superb."

Pucci came to the calling by which he is best known almost by accident. His education was more appropriate for a scholar than for a designer: he holds an M.A. in social science from Reed College in Oregon and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Florence. Pucci joined the Italian air force in World War II and garlanded himself in medals and citations as a bomber pilot. With the war's end, he settled in Switzerland, living the good life on the slopes. It was at St. Moritz that a roving Harper's Bazaar photographer encouraged his sartorial talent by asking to photograph some self-designed stretch ski pants that Pucci was wearing. Lord & Taylor saw the glossies and asked if they could manufacture the pants. The rest is hysteria. In the years that followed, Pucci became the champion of sportswear, the prince of prints and--an important clue to his success--the creator of designs recognizable even to men.

Electric Complaints. Everyone knows, of course, that politics and pulchritude don't mix. Everyone that is, except Pucci, who combines them as neatly as he does his colors and patterns. He is a member of the Italian Parliament in the minority Liberal (meaning conservative) Party. At his Palazzo Pucci on Via Pucci in downtown Florence, he spends hours a day sorting through stacks of mail from the worlds of both fashion and politics. "One letter may be a request for an interview as a fashion designer," he says. "The next letter is from a constituent who complains about the electricity service in his village." With his elegant wife Cristina, 31, and two children, Pucci lives the restless life, traveling, speaking, designing, electioneering (he hands out signed scarves with his campaign literature).

His first men's fashion line was presented last week in Houston, featuring collarless suits with wide lapels and lined with his trademark, brightly patterned silk. His next project: modern furniture. "I've done the drawings," he says. "They started out as a joke, a hobby, but they've gotten serious. I try to keep up with the world of tomorrow. I want to keep doing what I've always done, which is the best I can within my own limitations." So far, those limitations--whatever they may be --have been kept pretty well out of view.

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