Umberto Tirelli (Gualtieri, 1928 – Rome, 1992) was an Italian tailor, costume maker and designer, historian of costume and collector. Tirelli was born in Gualtieri, a town in the Emilia Romagna region near the River Po. He was the oldest of four siblings and he spent his youth bottling wine with his father who was a wine and grains merchant. Tirelli initially wanted to become a teacher but the idea didn't last long. At the age of sixteen he discovered he had a love of clothing by frequenting the home of Luigi Bigi, a tailor who lived in the same town and who reproduced French fashion in Milan in the 1930s. In 1952, Giorgio Sarassi who, with Bigi's help, had made his fortune in the business of fabrics for high fashion, found Tirelli a job in Milan as a delivery boy and display designer for