Oliviero Toscani, photographer behind Benetton's shock ads, dies at 82

Oliviero Toscani, the man behind the shock advertising campaigns that helped make Italy's Benetton one of the world's biggest clothing brands, died on Monday at 82, his family said.

Toscani was admitted to hospital on Friday in Cecina, near his Tuscan country home, in a severe condition. A source with knowledge of the matter said on Saturday he had lost consciousness.

"It is with great sorrow that we announce today, 13 January 2025, that our beloved Oliviero has embarked on his next journey," Toscani's wife Kirsti and three children said.

The photographer had revealed in an interview in August with the Corriere della Sera newspaper that he was suffering from amyloidosis. This rare and incurable condition leads to the build-up of amyloid proteins that affect the body's vital organs.

Toscani said he had lost 40 kg (88 lb) in weight in one year, and the newspaper published a picture of him looking sickly and emaciated.

Toscani, born on Feb. 28, 1942, followed in his father's footsteps by training as a photographer, studying in Zurich, and working for several fashion magazines, where he helped establish the careers of models, including Monica Bellucci.

However, he became prominent in the 1980s as creative director for Benetton, the family-owned fashion chain based in northern Italy.

Toscani put images of a dying AIDS patient and the blood-drenched clothes of a soldier killed in Bosnia on billboards around the world, stoking controversies that helped to popularise the "United Colors of Benetton" logo.

The photographer left Benetton in 2000 after a furor over a campaign featuring images of U.S. prisoners on death row.

Toscani and American freelance journalist Ken Shulman interviewed and photographed 26 prisoners awaiting execution in U.S. jails in a campaign that read like a passionate manifesto against capital punishment.

"I exploit clothing to raise social issues," Toscani told Reuters in an interview as the controversy raged over whether the campaign was too far.

"Traditional advertising says if you buy a certain product, you will be beautiful, sexually powerful, successful. All that bullshit doesn't exist," he said.

He resumed working for the group in 2017, reestablishing his partnership with Luciano Benetton, one of the company founders, who had returned to try and revive a brand overtaken by nimbler players in the fast fashion sector.

However, the Benetton group cut ties with him in 2020 after comments that played down the significance of the 2018 Morandi Bridge disaster, which killed 43 people.

At the time, the bridge in Genoa was operated by a unit of the Benetton family-controlled infrastructure group Atlantia.

In 2024, his work was showcased in an exhibition entitled "Photography and Provocation" at Zurich's Museum of Gestaltung.