An Italian, a talented Bari native, who made it big in the US, without ever forgetting his roots. He flew away to Arizona, a land of dreams and chimeras, on March 24th, but his heart was always tied to his native land. Raffaele Paterno’s dream had come true, becoming a successful emigrant after an incredible story of sacrifices, from Bari, his hometown, to the United States.
Son of Francesco, a merchant, and Anna, a housewife, he was born in 1932 in via Cattaro, in the heart of the Madonnella neighborhood and, at the age of twenty-four, after completing his studies and military service, he left for a sort of prize vacation to New York, where his mother’s relatives lived.
Destiny is always in the details: leaving for the long journey from Naples, he had exchanged his ticket, to travel with his uncle who was returning to the Big Apple, with a stranger. The ticket he had given away was for a ship, the Andrea Doria, which was about to embark on its last voyage, sinking on July 26, 1956, 200 kilometers from New York where it was supposed to dock. America had seduced him: instead of returning after a few weeks to the land that would have guaranteed him continued work in the solid family business, he decided to stay there, with little money. His relatives did not offer him an easy life and he had to invent any kind of job. The strangest? Participating in a television program impersonating the stereotype of the Italian, or rather of the southerner who barely spoke “l’ammericano”, when in fact he already knew it perfectly.
His path, however, was in another sector. Equipped with a diploma in cutting and sewing sent to him from Bari, necessary to enter the quota of workers to whom the law of the time allowed to obtain a residence permit, to acquire US citizenship he had to remain for five years in the Land of Columbus, without ever being able to return to his own land.
The ties with Bari? They passed through long letters exchanged with his mother who, first by ship and then by plane, faced the fear of the ocean several times to reach him, on one last occasion even without the support of her husband, who remained in Italy for work reasons.
Raffaele had now become Ralph in the US documents finally obtained: thanks to so much commitment he had taken over, together with Antony, an Italian-American cousin, a small home goods shop, which the elderly owners had called “Veneziano”. The shop, located on a then anonymous Madison Avenue, was intended for the sale of clothing. The extra edge, however, came from the style, the Italianness of the fabrics and clothes. From there, every six months, Ralph left for Milan, where, thanks to a great intuition, he bought, to then sell at retail, the clothes most suited to New York taste and produced by the “up and coming” brands of the time: Sorelle Fontana, Krizia, Les Copains and others, including Gianni Versace. And there where, over the years, the great actresses of the time began to join him, Candice Bergen among others, whom he advised with expertise and also with a good dose of “Italianness”. Where even Jacqueline, John Fitzgerald’s wife at the time, would arrive after the entire block had been closed to traffic, to buy the sandals and “Capri-style” trousers that Ralph had produced on that island.
The reliability and dynamism typical of Bari then made the difference. Gianni Versace opened his first store just a few steps away from Veneziano and offered Ralph a job. He refused because he did not want to close the former junk shop, a condition of the contract he had to sign. Ralph waited for other “trains”. Which arrived with the proposal to join the company of the Calabrian designer, also taking care of the commercial activity that took place in other cities on the East Coast. And keeping ownership of the “Veneziano” boutique.
By now the emigrant, who took lunch breaks with canned goods or sandwiches in the back of the fitting rooms, was cited by American newspapers as the pioneer of Italian fashion in NYC and was surrounded by important men, famous women and models … taller than him. Among them, Carole, who became his wife. Accompanying him around the world but especially in Italy, both when she came for a week (four days in Milan to attend the fashion shows and three in Bari, to hug his family), and when, after finally retiring, she stayed for the whole summer in a villa in the Bari Sud neighborhood, Torre a Mare. And, above all, remaining at his side in his buen retiro in Arizona until the moment she saw him breathe for the last time. As soon as possible Carole will bring Ralph’s ashes here, as he had decided, to the cemetery not far from the sea. To keep them just a few steps away from where they had lived for over twenty years, for one season a year, and above all a few centimetres away from what remains of the other brother, Michele, with whom he had maintained a tender bond studded with affection and phone calls every Sunday evening.
