Born in Los Angeles, Frank Tignino imbibed Hollywood glamour from the early days of his career: first as an apprentice to designer Don Loper, later working with couturier Michael Novarese. (Both Loper and Novarese worked for MGM and other movie stars.)
In time “Mr. T.,” as his friends call him, became a design legend himself. He worked as a designer under his own name in New York as well as for several acclaimed labels such as Jerry Silverman, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Geoffrey Beene before opening his own made-to-order business for international clientele in 1992.
The promise of Frank Tignino—make his customers look their best. “ ‘Life is an illusion,’ as Marlene Dietrich said, and a fashion designer’s job is to make this illusion even more perfect and beautiful,” says Tignino.
His work follows haute couture standards and everything is based on the client’s wishes and needs. His first step is to develop a dress body for the client, based on the individual measurements. No matter how full a figure is, Mr. T. believes that it depends on the designer’s skills to create a compelling impression of a person, and that a big woman in a custom-tailored outfit can easily outshine anybody who is dressed from the rack.
[caption id=“attachment_71566” align=“alignright” width=“320” caption="FABRIC SHAPED AND SCULPTED: Tignino
