Flamingo Couture Origin Story
A GLIMPSE INTO THE EXCLUSIVE ITALIAN FASHION HOUSE: CASA DEL FENICOTTERO
Karel de Flamingo is the snooty head designer at haute fashion house Casa Del Fenicottero in Milan. His appearance is striking, almost to the degree that it’s freakish. Instead of a healthy pink, his feathers are practically silver due to his exclusive diet of raw Yubari King Melon and pufferfish, which he has imported daily from Japan. He smells like a filthy floral candle, thanks to a pungent violet indole shampoo he uses to keep his feathers from getting brassy. His long silver wig is always pulled into a taut, glossy ponytail at the base of his neck. And you will never find him without his signature silk ascot secured with a diamond stick pin and a pair of hot pink cat-eye sunglasses. Typically he is pushing around an IV on wheels, which delivers French champagne straight into his bloodstream via a continuous drip.
You can often find him accompanied by his pet monkey, an angry terror on a leash with a soft pink wrinkled face and a matching pink butt that always looks like an about-to-explode bratwurst. Thankfully, he’s almost always wearing diapers around the studio, so you don’t have to see his disturbing patootie staring you in the face. (Karel calls him Mon Petit Chou-Fleur, which means ‘my little cauliflower,’ Mon Petit for short.) Mon Petit has a personal staff, including a Mandarin tutor, a sleep coach, and spiritual and financial advisors. He probably gets more in his weekly allowance than you could hope to make in your entire lifetime. One of Karel’s greatest joys in life is watching Mon Petit run around the studio, creating total anarchy at the various workstations, especially when he perches on the shoulders of the seamstresses to pick for nits in their hair while they work tirelessly to bring Karel’s absurd and avant-garde designs to life. Of course, if a nit were ever found, the seamstress would be fired on the spot. One of them was even blinded temporarily once when a bored Mon Petit thought it would be amusing to create a hailstorm of jelly beans in the studio, and she was struck in the eye.
This chaos starkly contrasts Karel’s atelier, which resembles an art gallery more than a clothing design studio. The walls are austere white, and the furniture is minimalist and brutal. The only music allowed is Kraftwerk. Reeking of an onion bagel could get you sent home for the day. Karel must never see anything he deems utilitarian or functional within his line of sight. Seeing a cord plugged into an electrical outlet or a pair of scissors sitting on a table, for example, could be immediate grounds for dismissal.
When asked why he always wears a signature pair of hot pink cat-eye shades every day, Karel responded “Une touche de rose vif est comme une pincée de paprika pour votre visage, chérie.” (A splash of hot pink is like a dash of paprika for your face, darling.) And we couldn’t agree more. It’s why we created these hot pink Flamingo Couture cat-eye sunglasses with teal reflective lenses (but without all the pomp and snootiness).
