Beppe Angiolini

Beppe Angiolini died at his home in Arezzo in the early hours of Saturday 17 October 2026, aged 73, after a long illness. He would have turned 74 on 5 December. Some reports gave his age as 74. The nature of his illness was not made public.

Three days before his death he had published an Instagram post titled "il tempo sospeso" (suspended time), in which he wrote that his treatment had helped him, that an operation on his leg was not yet possible, and that he still had many projects in mind.

Camera Buyer Italia remembered him as one of the most influential Italian buyers of the last forty years, and its president and co-founder Maura Basili said she had lost a dear friend. Carlo Capasa, chairman of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, said the fashion world had lost a figure of great sensitivity and vision. His death was reported by Arezzo Notizie, Corriere Fiorentino, Sky TG24, Il Sole 24 Ore, Leggo, FashionNetwork and WWD. Local reports said the chapel of rest would be at the Misericordia in Via Garibaldi in Arezzo and that the funeral might be held on Monday 19 October, though no official arrangements had been announced at the time of reporting.

Giuseppe Angiolini was born on 5 December 1952 and grew up in Arezzo, in Tuscany, the city where he would spend his whole working life. Everyone knew him as Beppe. As he told newspapers and magazines in later years, his story began with a penniless accountancy student who had one great passion: dressing other people with a very personal touch of fashion. That passion led him to abandon his studies, a regret he made good much later in life, when he was already a successful businessman. According to WWD he began his career in fashion in his early twenties.

In 1978 Angiolini opened a small boutique on Corso Italia, Arezzo's main shopping street. FashionNetwork reported that he did so despite early resistance from his family and that the shop was officially opened in 1979. It carried the name it would keep for the rest of his life, Sugar. The beginning was difficult: business was slow and his fashion was considered too innovative for local tastes, so much so that he thought of giving up. Instead he took personal control of the shop, helped by his mother, and it gradually established itself until its windows occupied an entire block at the top of Corso Italia, near the medieval Pieve church, an area he helped to revive. A local legend, which he neither confirmed nor denied, held that Giorgio Armani noticed the windows while passing through Arezzo.

Sugar was built on research and avant-garde brands and drew shoppers from across Italy. Angiolini became a prominent figure among international buyers, respected for his discerning and unconventional eye, and travelled to the shows in Milan, Paris, London and New York. He was friendly with designers including Giorgio Armani and Roberto Cavalli, designed a line for Ermanno Scervino, and, according to Carlo Capasa, was among the first to believe in Costume National. Corriere Fiorentino reported that he was one of the few Italians invited to dinners at Downing Street in the years of Cool Britannia, and that he developed a fashion export business with multimillion turnover, including sales to China. Sugar launched its online store in 2016.

In 2018 Sugar moved into Palazzo Lambardi, the historic home of a noble Arezzo family, on Corso Italia. The project with the designer Vincenzo De Cotiis combined wooden ceilings, frescoes, a hanging garden, a Renaissance fireplace and a Roman mosaic floor with marble, metal and digital screens. Angiolini filled the space, about 13,000 square feet according to WWD, with fashion, art, books and music, and added hospitality: the Sugar Rooms boutique hotel and the No Sugar Please bar.

Angiolini was president of Camera Buyer Italia, the association of Italy's leading fashion buyers and retailers, from 2008 to 2014 according to WWD, and later became its honorary president. In Arezzo he was artistic director of Oro Arezzo, the jewellery trade fair, and still artistic director of the city, a post to which the previous municipal administration had appointed him, and he chaired the technical committee of the Fiera Antiquaria, the antiques fair. He was a regular television commentator on style, especially during the Sanremo Festival, when he sat each year on the panel of the programme Domenica In judging the singers' looks, and he appeared as himself in a fashion show scene in an Italian feature film.

Angiolini kept Arezzo at the centre of his life and work and never moved his business elsewhere. He admired Miuccia Prada and especially her husband Patrizio Bertelli, also from Arezzo, and counted many figures from fashion, culture and entertainment among his friends, including the designer Ermanno Scervino. According to Corriere Fiorentino, he fell ill a little more than a year before his death. In February and March 2026 he put himself forward as a civic candidate for mayor of Arezzo, seeking support across the usual political divides. The centre-right coalition initially gathered around him, but the idea faded within weeks and he stepped back. WWD reported that he was survived by his brother Alessandro.

Angiolini showed that a boutique in a provincial city could become an international destination for fashion. Through Sugar he made Arezzo a meeting point for fashion, art and design, and Camera Buyer Italia said his eye, his ability to recognise talent and the freedom of his choices helped establish buyers as protagonists of fashion culture and as key partners in the growth of brands. FashionNetwork noted that Sugar was regularly ranked among the best concept stores in the world. In his home town he is remembered as the man who took the name of Arezzo around the world without ever leaving it.