Emilio Pucci, Marchese di Barsento (20 November 1914 – 29 November 1992) was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colours.

The first clothes designed by Pucci were for the Reed College skiing team. But his designs came to wider attention in 1947, when he was on leave in Zermatt, Switzerland. Skiwear that he had designed for a female friend was photographed by Toni Frissell, a photographer working for Harper's Bazaar. Frissell's editor asked Pucci to design skiwear for a story on European Winter Fashion, which ran in the winter 1948 issue of the Bazaar. Although there had been some experiments with stretch fabrics in Europe before the war, Pucci's sleek designs caused a sensation, and he received several offers from American manufacturers to produce them. Instead he left the Air Force and set up a haute couture house in the fashionable resort of Canzone del Mare on the Isle of Capri.

Initially he used his knowledge of stretch fabrics to produce a swimwear line in 1949, but soon moved onto other items such as brightly-coloured, boldly-patterned silk scarves. Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus encouraged him to use the designs in blouses and then a popular line of wrinkle-free printed silk dresses.[1] Pucci added a boutique in Rome as business thrived, helped by Capri's role as a destination for the international jet set. By the early 1950s, Pucci was achieving international recognition, receiving the Neiman-Marcus Award in Dallas and the Burdine's Sunshine Award in Miami. Marilyn Monroe was buried in one of his dresses, and his designs were worn by everyone from Sophia Loren to Jackie Kennedy and latter day pop icons such as Madonna in the early 1990s.

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