ANNA PIAGGI/4

She arrived in Vogue in 1968, the perfect year for her unrestrained and fierce imagination to explode from its pages. In the meantime she had married photographer Alfa Castaldi and, for many years, the two were one of the most distinguished couples in Milan which was fast becoming – and became – a fashion capital (Alfa died in 1995). And to think that in the early 1950s, when Anna with her round face, big nose and shoulder-length hair was starting out, she wore a shirt and blouse! «No one was ready for the Anna Piaggi which was to come – she told me – probably not even me. »