Nina Ricci

The fashion brand and couture house Nina Ricci goes back to Italian Maria Adélaide Nielli. That was the actual name of the creative lady behind one of the most successful brands in Paris. She was born in Turin in 1883 and, after her parents moved around a few times, finally moved to France in 1895, where Nielli began training as a dressmaker. She married jeweler Luigi Ricci in 1904 and became a mother without neglecting her everlasting interest in fashion. After 20 years as an employee, Nielli enhanced her business side with her brand. She opened her first atelier, with her husband as her sponsor. This was the beginning of the fashion house Nina Ricci. The target audience of the haute couture brand is primarily the upper-class French society, which she pampers with the finest materials, original details, and emphatically feminine designs. The designs met exactly the taste of the time at the beginning of the 20th century. This success remained firm despite the Great Depression and the Second World War. After the war, the business of the brand passed to the son Robert Ricci, who managed to enhance the brand’s popularity level on an international scale. And it was Robert Ricci who launched the brand’s first fragrances, "Coeur Joie" (1946) and "L'Air du Temps" (1948). At the end of the 1950s, Nielli retired from the fashion industry and left the brand entirely to her son. He continued to run Nina Ricci until 1998 when he sold it to the Spanish fashion and perfume label "Puig S.L.".