Diego Dalla Palma is among Italy’s leading experts of style, a look maker, makeup artist, author, television personality, multifaceted entrepreneur, and founder of the eponymous makeup and beauty line. Born in 1950 in Enego, Veneto, he trained in Venice and since 1968 he worked as costume and stage designer for the theater and RAI in Milan. In 1978, he established Diego Dalla Palma Milano, a beauty and makeup line, along with the Laboratorio d’Immagine Makeup Studio in Milan.
As one of Italy’s most important and influential television personalities, Diego Dalla Palma has contributed to numerous weekly and monthly publications and has authored several books on style, makeup, and beauty, including La bellezza interiore (2006) and Accarezzami, madre (2008). His life and work are further explored in the VIVO podcast (Show Reel Studios, 2024).
Diego, thank you for this interview. In creating your versatile image, you have reconciled very different experiences. Would you like to talk about the various functions that you have given to your creativity, such as entrepreneur, writer, even costume designer, and TV personality?
I think that they all basically originate from torment. I have always been a man with a sorrowful and tormented nature. Consequently, in some respects, I am restless, and this has led me to challenge myself: I repeat, take note, I am tormented and restless. Restlessness, therefore, almost always leads you – I have known very few people like me, but I have known a few – to measure yourself against the next challenge. Now, instead, I am realizing that strangely enough the challenges that I no longer have in me, and the ones that are no longer in my DNA, are being replaced by demands on my own performance, initiatives, and a completely different creativity that I had now put away.
Let’s go in order, though. The first torment was that of adolescence, when I wanted absolutely to measure myself against the fact that, during art school in Venice and afterwards, I loved to design clothes, dresses and accessories. This was the first creative drive that led me to become a costume designer at RAI: at RAI in Milan, Corso Sempione, and at RAI in Turin, Via Verdi, where I worked, I repeat, as a costume designer, for almost ten years, especially at RAI in Milan, where I lived. In those ten years, my creativity was at its peak because I have also been a stage designer: theater was an aspiration and an inspiration, both vital to me. Theater became the stage of my way of conceiving art, the stage of my creativity and the stage of my torments, which met the conditions to soothe. So, those ten years were the absolute best of my life.
The second part, that is the one linked to cosmetics, has a completely different purpose, and in my opinion does not stem from creativity, but from a kind of surrender. I yielded to the lack of money. Unfortunately, even though I could see my costumes, my scenes, and even though I loved the work that I was doing, I adored it, I found that at the end of the month I always had great difficulties. Fortunately, I always combined my creativity with common sense, and I said, “If I go on like this, I do not know how to pay the rent for everything.” I opened a small perfume shop in Brera, intending to be a perfumer, therefore living as a perfumer, earning money by selling cosmetics and makeup products. I knew that my singular and atypical touch would shine through, because I am atypical in everything: in how I am, live, dress, think, draw, and even perceive old age.
I was therefore sure that this would finally provide me with the financial stability that I needed, finally satisfying. However, mind you, the torment and restlessness also took over, and I started thinking of and making red, pink, yellow and fuchsia eye shadows, and blue, black, white and green lipsticks. People laughed at me: I could hear the comments of people passing by through the thick glass of the shop window.
However, I waited for a while, at least a year and a half, of renewed hunger and suffering, while I was still working at RAI anyhow and doing something, so I was able to support myself. Then, I ran into the luck that brought me to the United States, where I was called the prophet of Italian makeup in the world by The New York Times.
In Italy, undoubtedly, considering how xenophiles we are, this immediately brought results, with features in Vogue and major newspapers, and a market developed for my unusual cosmetic line, which is still unusual and ahead of its time because I have insights undoubtedly shaped by the difficulties in my life and the coma that I experienced as a young man. Having said this, following on cosmetics, I started because I liked to express my thoughts and reflections in a somewhat emphatic language that now I would no longer use. Nowadays I write in a much more to-the-point and concise way.
That marked the other part of my life. Then, mind you, books, thus industry and technical publications, and to prepare for the profession of makeup artist, hairstylist, and designer of accessories and apparel. That part of publishing blended in with thoughts, nonfiction, and educational books. Yet again, restlessness, and I said to myself, “I would like to develop something in cosmetics as well” that continues my singularity, and I worked for others as well. Then, truthfully, I began to acknowledge my age and to have not so much a pessimistic but realistic outlook: “Now I am 50-55 years old; I am approaching 60, and everything will fade into nothingness. Like everyone else, I will have to make the best of it, travel, because traveling is my passion.” Travel and music are the two things that have kept me from taking my life in the past. Having said that, I will conclude at this stage; however, forgive me, Victoria, I gave you this excursus so that the issue is clear to you.
Having said that, I already envisioned not so much life as a pensioner but with consulting, travel, then suddenly the theater comes along, because two years ago I received a phone call from the person who was the artistic director of the Olimpico in Vicenza at the time, saying, “I want to include you in the classics, with your concept of beauty, invent me a formula.”
I presented him with a concept of a type of beauty that emerges through courage, diversity, pain, awareness, discipline and destiny. He says, “Wonderful, wonderful.” I go on stage and they say that I do it with ease, I do not have the slightest fear of creating empathy with people, I go casually from the stage to the audience, engaging and caressing the audience; however, I already noticed this before, during conferences I attended in the past, the master classes that I was curating. In the end, it is a hit, with some theaters and particular places, together with particular promoters that make me take the stage to talk about this theatrical journey, called Bellezza imperfetta, with the subtitle Fra vacche e stelle because it all started with a very strong example that my mother gave me, and it started from my mother, a woman who, although she smelled of manure because of the cows, took care of herself and did her makeup. We lived on herding and cattle, however, at any time of the day or night, she had that scarlet red lipstick: she would mix with hairspray so that it would last longer. Then I say, “That is nice,” and I also begin to dilute the theater commitments a bit because I am not an actor, and I do not even want to be on stage and on tours. I want to keep my theater performances as events in theaters of a certain type, maybe smaller, yet cozy, where my performance can be more intimate.
An agency called Show Reel Factory calls and summons me. They tell me, “The personalities we curate, our talents, are all much younger than you. You are absolutely the one with the highest number of years.” I say, “Yes, old.” “You say it. Yes, yes, but there is no problem.” “However, we see that you are at ease in talking to people, of engaging with people, especially younger audiences.”
Then, they say, “You have a way of speaking, even a voice” – which I have always considered horrible and croaking – “that is fitting for podcasts.” I am surprised and I say, “Podcasts?” “Yes.”
I recorded five podcast episodes on various topics, and they are having a wonderful reception. I was told all this when I went to Milan because those in charge of Showreel Factory wanted to meet a producer who asked me to design costumes for an Italian musical. The show will debut at the Arcimboldi in Milan in early February and will tour theaters across Italy and even in China. I will be designing numerous costumes and overseeing entire costume design. Once again, I have not sought out anything.
Then I could tell you how wisely the restlessness and the torment, after the death of my father and mother, have given me respite and peace. Yet, strangely enough, fate itself has not given me respite, because it keeps giving me incomprehensible and amazing signs. And now, I have told you everything.
I would like to delve further into your writing and the VIVO podcast. It seems that you craft your biography by preferring authenticity, factual accuracy, and the portrayal of your feelings. Most notably, you incorporate self-criticism and a clear-eyed view of yourself, free from romantic or eulogistic tones. If I recall correctly, you once mentioned regretting living as if the world were an amusement park.
What were the thoughts that led you to choose such precise autobiographical narrative style that you also expressed in the VIVO podcast?
The desperate need for authenticity and naturalness that, mind you, is not the same as being creative. Naturalness has nothing to do with being creative. You can be creatively natural and vice versa, or naturally creative. Authenticity and naturalness: for several years now, mind you, a relentless pursuit of honesty, clarity, and loyalty.
To the extent that you have defined all of it in entirely positive terms. There are people who instead say, “Exhibitionism,” others who say, “He wants to act like a charlatan,” and still others who say, “He is self-destructive, he loves to hurt himself.” That may be so, Victoria, but I finally found something I never even imagined that I would encounter: serenity.
If serenity came through all this raw, violent, or sometimes even self-destructive storytelling, then I welcome it, as it has been good for me. I will add another element, though, that makes me feel good telling about myself: the pleasant taste of creating a trap for the bastards, the liars, the slackers, and those who, as soon as I am gone, will want to tell my miseries, and will want to narrate them. Once I am finished, I know that everything about me will end, but surely, because I have some notoriety and I am a somewhat – actually, quite a lot – peculiar person, not a personality, there will be those who will say, “Ah, you know, he was like this, but you know he did this, he did that, he had this, he had that.” Then, in making peace with myself, being stern with myself, and honestly recounting all that I have experienced in all its highs and lows, through misery, splendors, I feel that this will give me sense of closure with the world, when that time comes, in an honest way.
This is something I like to emphasize. Being honest with myself in narrating myself because it brings me serenity. Being honest with others so that they do not see in me something that frankly I am not. Because I am not everything that people idealize. I have people writing exaggerated things on my profiles, who see me as some kind of shaman, holy man, prophet or mentor. I am none of these things. I am only a man who lives with the utmost, sometimes even embarrassing, loyalty to what he is.
You mentioned that you had a near-death experience from lymphocytic meningitis when you were six years old. When Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ theories have been established, it was said that near-death experiences (in short, NDEs) were a result of advancements in cardiology, as the ability to resuscitate patients led to many narratives of this type. Would you like to talk about how this experience changed your life?
It changed my life, and it also altered my personal inclinations on everything, especially in the artistic realm, because my mother and father would tell me how before that coma, when I was six years old, I never even made a mark with a pencil. After that coma, I do not know what happened; I started drawing faces, eyes, mouths, I really felt this inclination: I wanted to paint and to be an artist.
I remember that coma as a gift of life, because it made me realize, I understood. While I was inside in this light, ethereal atmosphere, floating in a lilac world, not pink world, I realized that I felt great and I was meeting figures, equally ethereal and evanescent, that I did not know. However, when I described some of these figures that I was constantly encountering, according to my mother they were my grandparents whom I had not met and possibly other people that I had not met, therefore I could never tell for sure if they were beings who lived or not.
As a matter of fact, I experienced that coma during a time when hospitals lacked intensive therapies and extraordinary means to restore people’s lives. It remains somewhat of a mystery because I was given up for dead by Professor Modesto Dalla Palma, a relative of ours, a great doctor that at this time has a pavilion named after him in the Feltre hospital in the Veneto region. In his opinion, therefore, I would never recover.
Instead, after a few days, about a week later, I recovered, and since then, I have placed a very high value on death. Another aspect to consider is that for a month I remained angry at the world, I did not want to play with other children anymore. A very sad and melancholy expression took over my eyes.
During that month and a half, I longed to return to that wonderful place I visited. I could tell you that the coma, as I said earlier, was a gift for me because it gave a deep meaning – it may sound strange – to life itself. I am living an extraordinary, wonderful life because I made it wonderful, not because life is wonderful. I always say that life is a difficult journey for a short vacation. I have made it wonderful, but I am convinced that everything I have done, and invented about myself and my actions, is strongly related to the fate that made me go through coma, know death, that I respect and look forward to when it will take place, with utmost serenity. I respect life as much as I respect death.
Would you like to talk about the American years of your brand and when you worked, for example, with Bloomingdale’s?
Bloomingdale’s was my chance to arrive in America because this is what it is about: Ginevra Falzoni, a journalist for Vogue, reported my unusual, unique line, at the time only called Makeup Studio. It was not known as Diego Dalla Palma, then became Makeup Studio Diego Dalla Palma, and later, we dropped Makeup Studio, leaving only Diego Dalla Palma.
Bloomingdale’s sent a fax to Ginevra Falzoni asking for a way to contact me, and that is when I was approached. When they told me, “You have been chosen to Avenue to present and sell your line in the United States through Bloomingdale’s on Fifth Avenue,” I was overwhelmed with excitement, even harmful in some respects. I left for the United States, not knowing English, and I still do not know it. know a little Spanish and French. In the United States I got by fairly well with Spanish. I arrived in the United States with Bloomingdale’s that welcomed me with a triumphant attitude and preparation, so it seemed insane to meet all the beauty journalists in New York at the Plaza, conduct a makeup master class, and to see people lining up to buy products.
It was a euphoria that led me to a critical mistake right away: I spent, spent, and spent. You know this perfectly well. They choose you because you will invest, not because they are in love with you. They choose you because they understand their need to do something original, but they do not gift you with anything. Everything is tied to the investments that you make. I made exaggerated investments, and I paid for them, because after a year and a half or two, I had to pull out of Bloomingdale’s and instead stay with distributors in Miami, Salt Lake City, Chicago, and Washington D.C. These were smaller distributors, but mind you, at the time they generated for me two billion in sales from the American market alone, so I was very happy. But to be honest, as a matter of fact, I financed everything myself, thus continuing to accumulate debt.
This is why I eventually thought it was interesting to sell the brand and just oversee things from a more external, almost contemplative, eye. Otherwise, I would not have been able to even proceed with other ventures. This is the story of Bloomingdale’s, and I can tell you, as it was beautiful, when I first arrived on Fifth Avenue, not knowing English, from Italy, and having never seen New York, and I arrived in front of Bloomingdale’s from the Plaza, where I was staying, because they told me, “Make sure the hotel is… [top-notch].” We went to the Plaza, but it was quite expensive. In short, when I stood in front of Bloomingdale’s and saw a giant photograph of myself at the entrance, on top, as soon as you walked in, suspended in the air, I confess that I started crying. Then, I went to the hotel after two hours to call my mother, exalting myself because I felt that I had arrived who knows where. Instead, I only arrived at a new life lesson that was beginning.
Among the milestones of your work as an entrepreneur, what products are you most proud of creating?
They are almost all born with one concept: to challenge clichés. Who said lipstick must be red? Why can’t it be blue? Today, nail polishes come in every color, but at the time, this was considered unthinkable. I already carried nail polishes in all colors. So, I am not particularly attached to any specific product. Instead, I am more connected to the advertising campaigns that I undertook – taking all kinds of risks, even lawsuits – that I remember as a magical moment in the creation of the Diego Dalla Palma line. It was incredibly fun for me to see that every time one of my advertising and communication ideas was released, it sparked discussion, especially among the so-called self-righteous, particularly the bigots. What I remember is the uniqueness of the products that defied all commercial logic.
Today, however, they are among the most highly regarded in the world, mind you, also because of the extraordinary woman behind them, Micol Caivano, who is the CEO. But the most beautiful aspect of this journey was how my own atypicality met another atypicality in the way we communicated. I realized that instead I was confronting homologation, banality, and the obvious in a significant percentage of people, almost the majority. That was perhaps the most fun and satisfying part of my life within cosmetics.
As an image-maker, what do you consider to be the main differences in the Italian and American ideas of female beauty dictated by Hollywood?
Those dictated by Hollywood have also changed even though, compared to the Italian ones, they are more resilient. I am sorry to say that both the American and the Italian concepts have remained infected by a terrible word, which I consider a metastasis of aesthetics and also of the image of both women and men: homologation.
Even in Italy there is a homologation related to many bloggers and influencers – not to all of them, please specify that when you write this, but to many of them – perhaps, who give homologating directions to young women, above all, who are never themselves. You see them all looking identical, wearing mini tank tops, wide-bottom pants at the bottom with a low waist, uncovered belly button, sneakers more or less of a specific brand, long hair parted in the middle, red lipstick with exaggeratedly defined lips, thick eyeliner, and accentuated eyebrows.
In America, unfortunately, this trend also exists but to a lesser extent in Hollywood, where the value of individuality has somehow persisted, and in the past it was in a wonderful way: there were great figures, such as Sydney Guilaroff among hairdressers, Anita Colby among image managers, great costume designers and makeup artists like Max Factor and Westmore, and all the others. They really created a unique and unrepeatable image laboratory, wonderful and majestic. In Italy, Cinecittà followed those footsteps to some extent, but Cinecittà is no more. In America, they have all gone “Kardashian style.” Everyone follows to some extent the concept of homologation. I think that this happens less in America, where the value of individuality remains quite strong.
Who are the actresses and iconic personalities that in your opinion had an impact on women’s looks internationally?
In the past, definitely Audrey Hepburn, but then also very far apart in style: Cher, for instance, is one of them, iconic, who nevertheless has been having her own following, and has become an icon with variety shows; Carmen Dell’Orefice, despite being 93 years old, remains iconic. Marilyn Monroe, more widely – from the past, of course, if we go in that direction, we have Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Kennedy.
Among more recent ones, Tilda Swinton stands out as a very selective actress, with short hair, always very elegant. Others, like Diane Keaton, one of Woody Allen’s most favorite and iconic actresses known for her use of hats, have also created their own style. In France, definitely Brigitte Bardot, Anouk Aimée, Fanny Ardant, and Catherine Deneuve. In Italy, I believe that the most iconic was Marella Agnelli, wife of Gianni Agnelli; then Monica Vitti, by far, Silvana Mangano, and Sophia Loren.
Furthermore, in the world, for example, we have Beth Ditto, out of all canons, a three-hundred pound all American girl, very sincere, who has declared her homosexuality, is beloved by the critics, and always communicates in her own style. However, obviously, let’s not forget Madonna and Lady Gaga.
What do you think are the fundamental stylistic elements of a film diva?
Originality. The key elements must be originality and being atypical. So, I call it, instead of “originality,” “atypicality.”
If you have intelligence, courage, culture and irony, atypicality is the value that makes you an icon. Woman or man, it does not matter.
Cover Image: Diego Dalla Palma
Photo Credits: Marco Marrè Brunenghi © Courtesy of Diego Dalla Palma
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