Gina Fratini once said that her aim as a fashion designer was to create clothes that made women “float by”.
A self-confessed and lifelong romantic, it was an approach that meant that her models levitated on the catwalks of the world’s fashion shows in soft and flowing layers of ruffled silks and diaphanous chiffon, delicate prints frilled with lace and acres of organza, taffeta, satin and embroidered velvet.
The fairytale quality of Fratini’s feminine couture caught the eye of Diana, Princess of Wales, who commissioned several eye-catching creations. To the state opening of parliament in 1984 she wore a Gina Fratini cream silk gown, and took the garment on royal tours of Canada and Australia.
A silk taffeta and plum velvet Fratini evening dress also turned heads when the princess attended the London premiere of ET the Extra-Terrestrial. Even more striking was a daring one-shouldered, sari-inspired white chiffon gown trimmed with sequins and beads that she wore for a decidedly sensuous official portrait by Terence Donovan. When she disposed of the dress in a sale at Christie’s in 1997 it fetched $85,000 for Aids and breast cancer charities. The gown went on display as part of the Diana: Her Fashion Story exhibition at Kensington Palace this year.
For the sixth of Elizabeth Taylor’s eight marriages — and her second time exchanging vows with Richard Burton — in a ceremony in a Botswana game reserve, Fratini created a fantastical, free-spirited kaftan in rainbow colours with flowing angel sleeves. The gauzy creation not only made the statuesque actress “float”, she was virtually transformed into a human butterfly.
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Other clients included the actress Raquel Welch, who chose Fratini as her personal costume designer for the film Bedazzled, Viscountess Rothermere, whose silk organza evening dress printed with a black velvet bodice is now in the V&A costume collection, as well as Princess Alexandra, Princess Michael of Kent, and Princess Anne, who wore an ice-green dress in silk by Fratini for an official 21st-birthday portrait by Norman Parkinson.
Yet despite Fratini’s aristocratic clientele, much of her inspiration was drawn from humbler influences, conjuring up images of rustically smocked milkmaids. “I love using masses of fabric because it is soft and pretty and peasanty,” she once said.
When she launched her fashion house in 1964 the fashion was for close-fitting clothes. Her more relaxed retro look with its bucolic influences and soft fabrics marked a radical departure and helped to launch a new British boutique movement. She noted in a 1973 interview: “I like soft fabric, but only natural ones like pure silk or pure cotton. I cut everything in bias and just let it fall.”
Above all, she believed that elegance should be a way of life, not something imposed when the occasion demanded. “A firm fashion attitude makes living palatable. I design for a woman with romance in her soul,” she said.
A gentle woman with a pronounced sense of fun, Fratini had a passion for horse racing and was a keen gardener at her homes in Wandsworth, southwest London, and Wiltshire. She married her first husband, David Goldberg, in 1954. They divorced in 1961. She then married Renato Fratini, an Italian commercial artist who illustrated film posters, including the Carry On series.
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The Fratinis were an exuberant presence on the London scene in the Swinging Sixties. “He loved food, drink, cigars and dancing,” Gina said of her second husband. “He liked to generally live it up. He adored jazz, and we were always out at Ronnie Scott’s.”
They got divorced in 1968, and the next year she married the Scottish actor and comedian Jimmy Logan. He quipped that he had employed her to design costumes for his show, but she was so expensive that it was “cheaper to marry her”. They divorced in 1977.
She then lived with the actor Anthony Newley from 1993 until his death in 1999. They had first met in the 1950s and had embarked on an affair. He went on to marry Joan Collins, but remained close friends with Fratini. She nursed him devotedly through his final illness with cancer, and he died in her arms in Florida in 1999. “I was stroking his face and he just went to sleep,” she said. “We came back together at the perfect time, but it ended too soon.”
Gina Fratini was born Georgina Caroline Eve Butler in Kobe, Japan, in 1931, the daughter of the Hon Somerset Butler, the son of the 7th Earl of Carrick, and Barbara Hood. Her godfather was the businessman Sir Victor Sassoon.
Her father’s work in the colonial service meant that she grew up in India, Canada and Burma before she was sent to England to be educated at Owlstone Croft, a public school in the Cotswolds.
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In 1947 she took up a place at the Royal College of Art’s newly founded fashion and design department. In her final year she met the American dancer Katherine Dunham, whose company was on tour in Britain, and joined the troupe as an assistant costume and set designer.
She spent two years touring the world with Dunham before returning to London in 1953. When she gave up work to become a housewife and start a family, friends were constantly asking her to run up dresses for them. Having not been able to have the children she craved, she started her own business in 1964, cutting out patterns and acting as her own machinist in her London flat.
She created two a collections a year until 1989, when she wound up the Gina Fratini label. Despite her enviable client list, she was broke. “I never had a nose for business,” Fratini admitted. She then worked as a guest designer for Norman Hartnell. In her old age she remained creative, gardening, painting and sculpting.
A perfectionist, she claimed to have “wept” when she saw Princess Diana’s wedding gown, which she had not been invited to design. Complaining that it looked crumpled, she blamed static that had caused the outer gown to stick to the under layer. Had it been a Gina Fratini creation, she would have used only “natural” materials and the dress “would have appeared faultless”.
Gina Fratini, fashion designer, was born on September 22, 1931. She died of undisclosed causes on May 25, 2017, aged 85