The Duchess Of Fashion.(Donna Simonetta)(Interview)

Byline: editor: Sally Singer

Combining old-world elegance with avant-garde lines, the work of the legendary Simonetta, writes Carolyn Burke , has never been more relevant.

I've always known my own mind," Donna Simonetta, Duchess Colonna di Cesaro, tells me as we settle into the plush comfort of her Paris drawing room. At 85, the aristocratic Italian designer, wearing black pants and a fine wool tunic in dark red (her "family" color), still has the blazing spirit of a condottiere.

Her 25-year career was marked by determination. "Simonetta is the best business woman--or man for that matter--in Italian couture," VOGUE' s Bettina Ballard wrote in 1960. "Feminine and attractive as she is, her mind is much more like a creative Renaissance man's mind, with an ability to dart ruthlessly toward any objective."

Now one can see her iconic creations on display at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, in "Simonetta, la Prima Donna della Moda Italiana." Cocurated by Vittoria Caratozzolo, Judith Clark, and Maria Luisa Frisa, this glamorous show interprets the couturiere's career in eight themed rooms that underscore her clothes' resonance with such contemporary designers as Alber Elbaz, Nicolas Ghesquiere, and the Italian duo (Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi) known as 6267, who bring Simonetta's elegant lines into the twenty-first century. "Her way of mixing minimalism with a strong sense of volume still inspires us today," Aquilano explains.

Born in 1922 to a duke and a Russian-Italian noblewoman, Simonetta honed her approach to fashion during adolescence by designing clothes for costume balls. "I still remember my first party dress," she tells me. "It was navy-blue silk, short and straight with a pleated ruffle around the neck." At 20 she was arrested by Mussolini's Fascists because of her friendship with an American diplomat. She was jailed, then interned in a mountain village.

"There was nothing to do, so I learned to cook," she says. Her favorite recipe, found in the cookbook she published in 1967, A Snob in the Kitchen, is pasta with cognac sauce. Today we're having spaghetti with a tomato-cream. "Very light," she says, helping me to another serving.