Inspired by Hollywood’s Goldern Era of Cinema combined with his experience in Parisian couture and Luxury, Roberto de Villacis designs unique, collectable clothes and jewelery for passionate personalities from Oscar, Emmy & Grammy winners to Royalty.
Haute Couture for the Arts
History
Villacis is an internationally recognised haute couture designer/artist to movie stars, royalty, art collectors, and global A-listers. Born in South America, raised in South Florida, and educated in Europe, he is a world citizen, fluent in five languages as he travels the globe in his romantic crusade, Glamour Saves the World. With an impeccable pedigree and success rate for private clients and global luxury brands alike, Villacis is highly sought after for his golden touch and ‘savoir-faire’ in an otherwise over-hyped world.
First discovered in Paris by Karl Lagerfeld after graduating from the famed Paris fashion school, Studio Berçot, Villacis began creating fashion waves on the runways of Paris, London, and Milan. He worked as creative fashion director and consultant for iconic European luxury brands including Missoni, Blumarine, L’ Oreal and Lancome. Recognized by the elite European fashion, press, and business establishment as a ‘rare talent’ in an over-hyped field, Villacis took the fashion world by storm in 2002, founding the iconic cult European fashion brand, Trash Couture.
Breaking away from the ready-to-wear fashion frenzy, Villacis set up a base in Los Angeles to work more closely with his couture celebrity clients. Most notably, he engineered Carrie Underwood’s metapmorphosis from country girl into one of America’s most glamorous and sought after stars of style. His other transformations include special one-off creations for Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, Angelica Huston, Keith Richards, Penelope Cruz, Britney Spears, Cyndi Lauper, and the newest young Hollywood players including Christian Serratos, Grey Damon, Jeremy Sumpter, and Katerina Graham.
Not limited to having his work as a “cause celebre,” Villlacis embraced his status as a fashion expert, starring in Bravo’s reality-based television show, Launch My Line, in 2010. The show was a surprise critical and commercial hit, earning him the nickname “The Volcanic Diva Designer.”
His distinctive designs and signature style (not effervescent) grace not only the glossy magazines of Hola, People, Vogue and the Financial Times but the rarefied galleries of international museums from NYC to Shanghai. A topic of great discussion in Paris in the early 90’s was Villacis’s one-off ‘ Arte Povera’ light-sculptures that were exhibited by and have since been part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts at the Louvre in Paris, France.
Glamour Saves the World… or almost
United Aliens Artists Foundation
Pioneering this century’s art & fashion phenomena Roberto de Villacis is simply avant-garde. He was honored for his groundbreaking art work with a United Aliens retrospective in the celebrated multi-media installation Art as Adversting, Advertising as Art or is it Really just Fashion as Art, Art as Fashion at the prestigious Art Unlimited 2000 show in Art Basel, Switzerland.
Founded in 1997 originaly as an art & fashion collective by Villacis in London-Paris-Milan with guest artists most notably Donna Trope and the Brit Pop Art stars: the Chapman brothers, Gavin Turk, including uber fashionistas like Verushcka and Jodie Kidd, UAA is now established in the USA as a non-profit fondation. UAA now focuses on art for a greater social cause in conjuction with the Dreams without Borders/ Suenos sin Fronteras/ TOY charity for orphans and underprivilged children. As creative director and fine-artist of UAA, Villacis ‘s mission is to raise consciousness ‘to enlighten, entertain and embolden our spirits’ while bringing realistic help to those in need.
Villacis actively supports charitable causes such as the American Cancer Society, Sueños Sin Fronteras and the U.N. awarded orphanage in Bogotá, Colombia, Albergue Infantil Mamá Yolanda. Recognizing the underappreciated efforts of artisans worldwide, Villacis has joined forces with National Geographic and its award winning, eco-inspired décor and gifts branch, Novica. Villacis has been named the first ever Novica Design Ambassador creating semi-precious jewelry and connecting buyers to the worldwide arts and crafts community.
Established in 1997 with his United Aliens Artists Fondation in Europe and later USA, Villacis has been actively creating, directing, producting and fundraising UA art projects with guest artist collaborations such as the Brit Pop Art stars the Chapman brothers, Gavin Turk and uber-models like Verushcka and Jodie Kidd, with an aim to raise consciousness ‘to enlighten, entertain and embolden our souls’. Heralding the current Art & Fashion movement, UA’s most notable recognition is to be the first to recognised as a bonafide art group with the celebrated multi-media UA retrospective installation ( Art as Adversting, Advertising as Art or is it just Fashion as Art, Art as Fashion) in the prestigious Art Unlimited at Art Basel Switzerland, 2000. Current UA projects are focused on documentary film work for a greater social cause.
Working with museums and private fondations to conserve and exhibit the unique body of Villacis’s art and fashion work as an educational program is being currently considered to continue his unique legacy of Art as Fashion, Fashion as Art.
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