Elio Fiorucci, founder of flashy brand that pioneered stretch jeans, dies at 80

MILAN – Elio Fiorucci, founder of the Fiorucci brand that pioneered stretch jeans and exemplified the youthful, graphic ethos of the 1970s and 1980s, has died at age 80.

The news agency ANSA reported Monday that Fiorucci died of a sudden illness at his Milan home. No one responded to calls at Fiorucci’s headquarters.

Fiorucci opened its first shop in Milan in 1967 with novelties from London’s Carnaby Street, expanding into a lifestyle brand and adopting the famed two angel logo a few years later. The brand was linked with some of the biggest pop cultural moments of the 1970s and 1980s, with the Fiorucci team organizing the grand opening of Studio 54 in 1977, and Keith Haring decorating the Milan flagship store in 1984.

In 2001, Fiorucci gave up his creative role.