One dress, one story: when Gigliola cinquetti first sang "Non ho l'età"

1964, Copenhagen, Denmark.
​On the stage of Eurovision song contest, an Italian girl Gigliola Cinquetti (20 Decemeber 1947) sang the Italian song"Non ho l'età", wearing a dark navy or black sleeveless A line dress of knee length, with the Sabrina Collar (named after Audrey Hepburn's movie of the same name by French Costume designer Hubert de Givenchy, who designed most of Audrey's wardrobe in the film). In that dress and her ponytail, she sang and moved and even looked like the young Audrey: pure, innocent, and dainty.

audrey hepburn in film Sabrina wearing the dress of Sabrina collar designed by Hubert de Givenchy

Gigliola was 16, and her song was just like her, pure, innocent, dainty, about a young girl who wants to love but knows she is too young to love and needs to wait. With this song, Gigliola not only won thunderous applauses from the audience, the championship of the contest, but the rare honour of being the first and only artist in the Eurovision contest history to be allowed to greet her audience for the second time.

1993, Tokyo, Japan.
​Across the Atlantic Ocean, Gigliola Cinquetti sang this same song, her hair loose and wavy, her voice much deeper and more mature, she was already a world famous singer and not young any more. 
Even the dresses she wore was completely different, just liker she herself. Other than the A line silhouette, everything else was different: intstead of black, it was white, instead of the very high Sabrina collar, it was a deep V neck, instead of sleeveless, it was of 3/4 sleeve, and it was much longer, almost up to her ankle.
​What did not change, was that she still carried the same subtleness and elegance on stage,  like she did almost thirty years earlier. 

The song itself was very simple, about a teenage girl's chaste philosophy of love, which will sound very rare today, when everything needs to happen right now, perhaps seemed quite unusual as well at the time when Gigliola sang it, the time of miniskirt and sexual freedom.

Original LYRICS in Italian:
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Non ho l'età

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Non ho l'età, non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te
E non avrei, non avrei nulla da dirti
Perchè tu sai molte più cose di me

Lascia ch'io viva un amore romantico
Nell'attesa che venga quel giorno, ma ora no

Non ho l'età, non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te
Se tu vorrai, se tu vorrai aspettarmi
Quel giorno avrai tutto il mio amore per te

Lascia ch'io viva un amore romantico
Nell'attesa che venga quel giorno, ma ora no

Non ho l'età, non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te
Se tu vorrai, se tu vorrai aspettarmi
​Quel giorno avrai tutto il mio amore... per te.

My translation:

I am not old enough


I am not old enough, not old enough to love you
I am not old enough to go out with you alone
And I would not, I would not have anything to tell you
Because you know so much more about me

​Let me live a romantic love
Waiting for that day to come, but not now

I am not old enough, not old enough to love you
I am not old enough to go out with you alone
If you want, if you want to wait for me
That day you would have all my love for you

​Let me live a romantic love
Waiting for that day to come, but not now

I am not old enough, not old enough to love you
I am not old enough to go out with you alone
If you want, if you want to wait for me
That day you would have all my love... for you.
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