John and Yoko, Gala and Dali, Jane and Serge, Debbie Harry…. Among all the inspirational images on stylist Susanna Ausoni’s Instagram account, perhaps the most revealing one is that of Muhammed Ali, as this petite Milanese woman seems to live by the champion’s adage: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” That is, in my opinion, the effect of her collaboration with the Italian/Egyptian vocalist Mahmood (Alessandro Mahmoud).
Together, the stylist and pop star dare to follow the exciting new wave that is menswear today. For proof, see Mahmood in full-on mall-rat Balenciaga on the green carpet and a floor-length black skirt on the stage at this year’s Sanremo Music Festival, see him perfectly elegant in a black Prada suit at the 2022 Eurovision competition, and, most unforgettably, see him in pink Willy Chavarria wide-legs on the red carpet there. If that wasn’t a scene stealing look, I don’t know what is.
Musicians and television presenters are the main focus of Ausoni’s work. She started collaborating with Mahmood in 2016, long before his Vogue and GQ covers, but her love of music and its connection with fashion spans decades. To help fund her study of sociology at university, in the late ’80s Ausoni got a job at Fiorucci (when the founder Elio was still involved). “That was one of the coolest places in Milano, but I think also in Europe, where you could find yourself,” she says through an interpreter, “because of the mixing of cultures. It was the closest thing to an international view of street style that you could have at that time.”
In the early ’90s Ausoni was “discovered” by Paola Maugeri, who was presenting a music show on Italian television. “I was 20 at the time and that’s where everything began,” says the stylist. “Before, there were costume designers, which is a different job, and musicians would talk directly to the designers, to the fashion houses,” she explains. Ausoni became a bridge among all of these areas.
From the start she was already looking abroad for inspiration, and found it in Kim Gordon’s look, as well as at New York shops like X-Girl, Screaming Mimi’s, and What Goes Around Comes Around. Word (and of course images) started getting around and Ausoni soon became a go-to name for musicians, with whom she worked on personal styling and costumes for music videos and performances. In 2000 MTV asked Ausoni to be in charge of the fashion department, working with the VJs and musicians, as well as on video projects.
At MTV, Ausoni’s job was to create a fashion image that worked with and amplified the talent’s personality. To do so, she focused on the mix of contemporary and vintage clothes, with the aim of “taking something from the past and making it go forward into the future. That’s the difference between costume and styling,” she says. “Costume stays in the era [it references], while styling is mixing and looks to the future.” She cites Miuccia Prada as an example of someone who can conjure “a feeling from the past, but then she proposes a vision that looks into the future.”
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Since 2012 Ausoni has been working as a freelance stylist. She runs a vintage shop, My Room, in Milan, and this January, with journalist Antonio Mancinelli, wrote a book, L’arto dello styling, on the history of the profession. One of the goals Ausoni had in the book was to give a clear picture of what the job is like–it isn’t all red carpets and paparazzi. In fact, Ausoni focuses not on dressing her clients up, but paying attention to who they are. “I listen with my eyes,” she says.
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