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Beautiful and impossible, Alain Fabien Delon (1935-2024) left his mark on both the big and small screens, capturing the imagination of at least two generations of viewers. His life was one of excess and melancholy: his parents divorced when he was young, and from a boy, he found himself navigating the suburbs of Paris, the barracks of the French Navy, and finally, the stages of cinema and theater, until achieving great success.
His film debut came at the end of the 1950s, with his breakthrough occurring in "Plein Soleil" (1960), directed by René Clément, where he played the lead role of Tom Ripley. This role cemented him as a rising star of European cinema and launched a career marked by fame and great passions: women, cars, horses, and... design and architecture.
So, in 1975, Alain Delon, partly for fun and partly as a personal challenge, personally appeared at the Salone del Mobile in Milan to present 'his' furniture collection and meet fans and clients (photo). He had been invited by Vittorino Sabot, owner of the furniture factory of the same name in Udine, to propose to the French star to sign a line of furniture that he himself described as 'neither new nor old, neither futuristic nor antique. But Alain Delon style.'
If you closely examine the AD brand logo, which strongly resembles the famous monogram used by Albrecht Dürer to sign his drawings and prints, it seems the actor wanted to be on par with the great creators of the past, and that nothing was left to chance. After all, he knew art well and was a great collector, as demonstrated by the sale of his collection at Bonhams titled Alain Delon: 60 Years of Passion, June 2023.
The AD mirrors, lacquered furniture, and the sinuous lines of his silk beds seem to come straight out of his films, combining a gangster look with that of the luxurious villas of the emirs of the time. A style that started as a bet became a successful creation, leading the actor to return to Salone in 1980 to present another collection, this time created for Maison Jensen.
His furniture can still be found online, and on intOndo, today, attracting both small and large collectors. And perhaps not everyone knows that among the pieces found on intOndo is the screen The Assassination of Trotsky, exhibited at the Prada Foundation in 2023. A ready-made piece by Francesco Vezzoli that references Joseph Losey's 1972 film starring Delon and Romy Schneider, the screen reflects on the star's troubled life, as Vezzoli himself explains: "In reality, it is a screen designed by Alain Delon at a point in his career when he probably thought that his sex appeal was so universal that it could even be applied to interior decoration. Curiously, the style and pink fabric have a coquettish touch, compared to the 'alpha male' furniture by Willy Rizzo from the same period. And given Delon's own tumultuous love life, it seemed appropriate to me to reproduce an image of Romy Schneider on the surface of the mirror, as if Delon had never gotten over the guilt for the way he treated her or how their relationship ended..." A tribute to the great actor, who passed away just a few days ago, through one of his own creations.
The rest is history, and, we can now say, also the history of art and design collecting.
