Introduction 

Colours of Nature – Flowers

Lyrical Presence 

Wearing Relief

Sharing Contrast

Pure Volumes

Pure Lines

Different

Experimenting

Uniquely Mass Produced

And…Men

Prototype

When Form Becomes Style

Colours in Motion

Fahionable Pathways

Traces 2018 - Letting fashion drive you

The “selection” of garments and accessories in Traces 2018: Letting fashion drive you is based on the same formula as last year’s edition: traces left by modern sculptures and painting alongside an itinerary devoted to fashion in a series of fast-paced juxtapositions, some of them natural and logical, some of them shocking and conflicting, between textile artworks from the Museo della moda e del costume, sculptures and paintings from the Modern Art Gallery’s collections. Some of
them conjure up purely evocative images, others fuel mutually intriguing dialogue. But this time the garments come chiefly from daily life, pret-à-porter wear, some of which was even manufactured in series rather
than exclusively as unique one-of-a-kind pieces.
The sections have been indicated with brief flashes taken from a broader dictionary of verbs of action, nouns or simple attributes.
Only the first room retains its colours of nature - flowers from the previous selection, just as the paintings on the walls in this room and in the two rooms before the entrance are unchanged, thus imparting a sense of continuity, almost as though it were a second chapter unfolding through the rooms, occasionally in a peaceful and seemingly understated manner, but in reality the whole tour moves forward in flowing, linear fashion.

Back to the index

The first room opens with a Milan-based fashion designer called Jole Veneziani. One of the founders of Italian couture, she showed her creations in Giorgini’s first fashion show in 1951. We also encounter Ferré’s work, including a peacoat spangled with floral motifs and a cope whose fabric conjures up the Orient. In both we find the sophisticated decorative sense of a stylist as meticulous and stringent in detail as he was in the construction of his garments.

A marriage between floral adornments and Enrico Bettarini who, with his picture entitled Floral Composition painted in 1967, highlights his predilection for decorative composition and subjects from a repertoire of nature, flowers, fishes and, occasionally, such everyday items as toys. He depicts his subjects with meticulous care yet always with a light touch, almost like a pattern.

Back to the index

Gianfranco Ferré Couture

Peacoat

Autumn-Winter 

1988-89

Silk satin with borcading, gilded embroidery and silk ribbons, tubes, glass pearls, syntethic stones, sequins and beading appliques. Sable trim

TA 7517-18

Donated by Gianfranco Ferré

If we were thinking of sequence, continuity and order, Room 2 would soon cause us to change our minds. Remarkable for its intensely theatrical feel, it hosts in the foreground a monumental theatre dress designed by Roberto Capucci for a Vestal Virgin in Bellini’s Norma, a tribute to Maria Callas dated 1986. The work puts two creative phases of Capucci’s intense activity into focus: the theatre costume and the sculpture-garment; he devoted his energy only sporadically to the former, as we saw in an intriguing exhibition held in Palazzo Pitti last January, but the latter, the sculpture-garment, was to become his signature item. After 1990 he ceased to present collections and went on to become the leading player in prestigious monographic exhibitions around the world, maximising the full potential of pleats, creating weaves and expanding volume.

In conjunction with the dress, the priestess becomes an absolute symbol of the classic in Giulio Bargellini’s painting, in which we breathe a “Hellenistic” atmosphere in the classicising figures whose drapery ideally overflows from the picture until it virtually brushes the volume of the theatre costume; the cloth with its soft, almost evanescent hues merges with the dress in a kind of symphony in music and painting.

For opera, what better match than with the singer Maria Callas, whom Capucci must have had in mind when he created this dress, an imposing sculpture despite its intrinsic lightness, veiled by the melancholy of sounds from the past like a siren song.

Back to the index

Giulio Bargellini

Eterno Idioma

oil on canvas

Pitti Palace, Modern Art Gallery

Inv. GAM n. 5952

Roberto Capucci

Costume for Vestal Virgin in Bellini's "Norma"

1986

Silk taffeta, lurex fabric, bodice with applied sequins and silver cord of different sizes and shades

TA 3507-10

Donated by Roberto Capucci

Overlaps and appliques in gilded metal or fabric, in shades of colour different from the underlying cloth, characterise Room 3 devoted to Gianfranco Ferré; the clothes on display testify to his sophisticated creativity and his deep knowledge of technique bolstered by a consolidated experience that dialogues with the incisive style of Corrado Cagli’s painting Nadir, with which it is on the same wavelength thanks to his constant technical experimentation, his use of non-traditional materials and his new surface texture in velvet paper.

The leading player in the room, Ferré is an architect who has poured his sense of geometry, his rationality and his immense culture into designing, cutting and making clothes. His ideas jotted down on paper are bare, incisive drawings in which we can detect the artist’s emotional impact, just as we can intuit the variety

and sumptuousness of his decorations from his sketches. His individual creations have been compared to the pieces of a mosaic, from which he extracted a considerable number of items grouped by theme in order to donate them to the then Galleria del Costume, and thus to the city of Florence, in 2001.

Back to the index

Gianfranco Ferré

Prêt-à-porter suit 

Autumn-Winter 1987-88

Woollen jersey with embroidery in gilded metallic yarn, medallion appliques and semi-precious stone pendants. Stitched satin skirt

TA 7505-06

Gianfranco Ferré

Prêt-à-porter suit

Autumn-Winter

1989-90

Woollen jersey with ring, chain and gilded cord appliques. 

Georgette trousers

TA 7513-14

Donated by Gianfranco Ferré

Corrado Cagli

(Ancona 1910 - Rome 1976)

Nadir

1966 ca.

Waxy oil-based pastels on papier velour paper applied on canvas

Acquired at the 19 th National Fiorino Award Exhibition in 1969

Gianfranco Ferré

Prêt-à-porter suit

Autumn-Winter 1990-91

Leather top with semi-precious stone medallion and gilded metal volute appliques. Wincey skirt with fox fur trim

TA 7515-16

Devoted to Capucci who was certainly no longer a novice by this time but who displayed unmistakable genius in his classic models and his wool embroidery in the red chiffon dress or in the Madeleine Vionnet-style cut of the black dress, and in the endless metamorphosis taking place in the white and red dress. Still a very young designer, he showed his work on the catwalk in the Sala Bianca in 1951; earning the esteem of Christian Dior, he was declared Italian fashion’s most outstanding creator in 1956 and two years later, with his “box” line, he won the fashion Oscar at Filene’s in Boston. He worked in Paris from 1962 to 1967, but by the early ‘seventies he had gradually begun to trade his front-line stylist’s role for the role of one of the greatest artist-sculptors in the apparel industry.

Capucci interacts here with a painting by Nativi entitled Laceration, one of the most lyrical works by this Florentine painter who, along with others, played such a leading role in the movement known as Classic Abstraction, which in this picture reveals its ability to transcend the surface of painted space.

Back to the index

Roberto Capucci

Evening gown

1956

Silk grosgrain

TA 5418

Donated by Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana

The star of this room is the balanced, harmonic group of volumes in which Alimondo Ciampi’s sculpture is immersed. A Capucci suit from the early ‘sixties with its double pleats at the front and its trapezoidal shape paves the way for the future style of this designer who created sculpture garments with his famous folds and pleats. These are matched by a dress by Azzedine Alaïa, a Parisian stylist of Tunisian origin who, unlike Capucci, adds and overlays, devoting his energy to modelling fabric on the female body, following its soft shapes, swathing it and defining its surface with firm cuts almost like a kind of second skin.

Back to the index

Roberto Capucci

Suit: dress and jacket

1960

Silk-wool satin with mink fur

TA 5429-30

Donated by Associazione Tornabuoni - Linea più

The suit by Mila Schön clearly displays the essential features of her style: a linear design, and stringency and precision in the cut. She showed one of her collections on the catwalk in the Sala Bianca in 1968 but focused from the ‘seventies on solely on prêt-à-porter wear, launching the double-face, a fabric with a matching motif on both sides, an example of which we can see in the suit on display here.

The room also hosts a georgette evening gown by Capucci whose hempen braid trim reflects the astonishing creativity with which the artist intervenes on material. Next to it, a work by the other artist-sculptor of dresses, Azzedine Alaïa Alaïa too, like Capucci, does not follow fashion.

Their creations are timeless. His linear garments display the same purity of execution with which Arrigo Minerbi fashioned his young female nude.

Back to the index

Mila Schön

Suit: dress and overcoat

1966-70

Woollen cloth

TA 3914-15

Donated by Umberto Tirelli

Roberto Capucci

Dress

Autumn/Winter 1971-72

Silk chiffon with cord appliques

TA 3057

Donated by Marisa Sorcinelli

Elio Fiorucci is represented by a short jacket and a jeans skirt.

The stylist picked up on the revolutionary wind of 1968, the social upheaval it triggered and its inevitable impact on the world of fashion. He looked to street art and to Pop Art, working with Andy Warhol and with Keith Haring. Opening his first boutique in Milan in 1967, he went from strength to strength. His creations included fashion jeans in lycra and denim that clung to the body, offering a more sensual wearability.

A room focusing chiefly on the casual look could not fail to showcase Levi’s and Cotton Belt jeans, while the vibrancy of the geometrical forms seemingly abandoned in the jacket of the sequin suit designed by Oleg Cassini (a naturalised American who was Jackie Kennedy’s stylist) and the kaleidoscope motif on the suit designed by Ken Scott (a designer and brilliant decorator on fabric) would appear to be the prelude to a party, while a studied piece by Emilio Pucci, its structured composition inspired by the cathedral of Monreale, nearPalermo, seems to be a recall to order.

All of this is linked to the painter Anna Sanesi, a pupil of Rosai, who shows a penchant in her work for water and for lakeside landscapes. Her highly succinct style of painting reveals a vertical form of mapping like a tapestry describing an area and its vegetation.

Back to the index

Anna Sanesi

(Prato 1934 - 2009)

Spring in the Marsh

1965

Oil on canvas

Acquired at the 16th National Fiorino Award Exhibition in 1965

Ken Scott

“Kaleidoscope” suit: dress and overcoat

1974

Silk crêpe and metallic yarn overcoat; printed jersey dress

Donated by Susan Nevelson

Fiorucci

Jacket

1970 ca.

Worked wool, cotton and metal yarn fabric

GGC 7324

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Oleg Cassini

Suit: top and skirt

1984  

Organza, Jersey lined with sequins

TA 12250

Donated by Jean Toschi Marazani Visconti

“Experimenting” is the most appropriate term to describe Roberto Cavalli’s work, and two of the garments on display demonstrate the process of printing on leather that the stylist patented in the ‘sixties. Equally interesting is the result of his technique of applying leather on leather and the splendid colour effect it achieves.

The third dress, with an applique parrot, illustrates his passion for the animal world. All of these garments are likely to have been made in the ‘seventies, the first phase of his career.

In the small oil painting, the painter Pasquarosa Marcelli, the wife of artist Nino Bertoletti and a model for many of the leading lights in the Roman school, depicts a gaudy parrot using the à plat technique, almost as though she were seeking to emulate intarsia inlay work.

Back to the index

Roberto Cavalli 

Dress

1970-80

Leather with metal wire appliques and worked tulle

TA 8901

Donated by Gabriella Alessi

Roberto Cavalli

Parrot dress

1970-80

Cotton knit, suede with leather appliques knit

TA 8904

Donated by Gabriella Alessi

The characteristic sign in Capogrossi’s work Dialogues, an upside-down E, is reiterated in a silkscreen print using silk as a medium.

This is the final point in a complex process seeking to use the repetition of signs to achieve a universal language capable of forgoing the mimetic reflection of the truth.

That same language appears to be the language spoken by the three dresses designed by Azzedine Alaïa which, even with the details of the various models, conform to Capogrossi’s work, almost becoming three dark silhouettes that look as though they have been cut out in order to be themselves transformed into an equivalent sign or character.

Back to the index

Giuseppe Capogrossi

(Rome 1900 - 1972)

Untitled

1970

Silk-screen print

Donated by the artist

Azzedine Alaïa

Dress

1988 ca.

Stretch cotton jersey

GGC 7315

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

The room has the appearance of a precious treasure chest rich in works which, in a stylistic crescendo, engage in mutual dialogue and exalt each other in their different characteristics. Man, too, is exalted, man who has been so noticeably absent until now, with the presence of two men’s jackets, one by Yves Saint Laurent, a synonym for classic elegance, the other by Jean Paul Gaultier who with provocational intent has concealed a printed skeleton in the lining.

A suit by Ozwald Boateng, on the other hand, represents London made-to-measure tailoring characterised by care in the details that we can discover if we examine the suit in each one of its component parts: the jacket, the trousers and the waistcoat. The paintings

adorning the space also exalt the male figure.

Nor are the women’s clothes on display any less prestigious. They include a suit by Jean Lanvin from the mid-40s, a Gucci dress from the early ‘90s, an original and transgressive overcoat by John Galliano and an evening gown in degradé satin by Avelardo Bessi.

The painting hanging on the wall of the room, by Guido Peyron, is entitled Friends in the Workshop. The figures all sport dark suits, almost as though it were a kind of uniform, and the palette used for the painting of whole consists of a range of blacks and browns also found in the clothes on display. Peyron depicts a group of intellectuals, poets, artists and musicians in a bohémien atmosphere in which each one appears to be self-absorbed in search of his own creative inspiration, shunning all superficiality.

Back to the index

Massimiliano Corcos

(Florence 1894 - 1916)

Pietro Milani

1914

Oil on canvas

Donated by the artist's heirs in 1916

Ozwald Boateng

Dress, waistcoat and blouse

1997 ca.

Cotton, woollen cloth

GGC 8907

Donated by Fausto Calderai

Guido Peyron

(Florence 1898 - 1960)

Friends in the Workshop

1928

Oil on panel

Characters in the painting: Vieri Freccia, painter apprentice of Felice Carena (up on the left);

Gianni Vagnetti (up on the right);

Walfredo della Gherardesca ( in the middle on the right);

Odoardo Zappulli, painter and cellist (in the middle on the left);

Luigi della Piccola, musician (lower in the middle);

Arturo Loria, writer (lower right).

On permanent loan from the artist

John Galliano

Overcoat

1998 ca.

Woollen cloth with satin details

GGC 5872
Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Averardo Bessi

Evening gown

1965-70

Degradé silk satin

GGC 8829

Donated by Elisabetta Pesctori

The first tailleur suit was made for the Prince of Wales by an English tailor (hence the name) called John Redfern in 1885, but it was Coco Chanel who “tailored” it to the female body in 1917, lightening its structure and fabric and eventually making it the symbolic garment of the emancipated woman who adopts and adapts male clothing, emulating its practicality though refusing to dispense with her own natural elegance.

Thus Chanel’s suit may be seen as a prototype, a fashion icon, as can Christian Dior’s jacket representing the new look of the ‘fifties. Displayed here on its own, it was worn with full, voluminous skirts at the time.

Stringency and elegance also inhabit Martini’s sculpture of a female figure in terracotta, as robust and as unadorned as a pillar.

Back to the index

Dior

Jacket

1954

Wool diagonal

GGC 7167

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Chanel Boutique

Suit

1988-90

Fabric with different yarns (acrylic, polyamide, metal yarn) and grosgrain inlay

GGC 7187

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Devoted to the dressmaker Alma Mari Lami who worked in Florence from the ‘fifties to the ‘seventies. Her clothes perfectly reflect the characteristic features of workshops in the city in those years. Lami looked to Paris for her models, but her distinguishing features were the type and design of their decoration and their astonishingly sophisticated execution.

An exception is the ivory satin evening gown, where she seeks her inspiration in the Parisian couture of Elsa Schiaparelli in both the pattern with its asymmetrical drapery and the gilded silver metal thread decoration depicting small horses along a tendril.

Opposite we have Felice Casorati’s The Foreigner, a painting that is one of the emblems of Magical Realism with its figures turning their backs on us and its inexpressible atmosphere.

Back to the index

Alma Maria Lami

Evening gown

1953

Silk satin embroidered with silvered, gilded metal thread and with sequin and small gilded stud appliques

TA 6689

Donated by Francesco Lami

Gianfranco Ferré, whose work we have already encountered on several occasions in the course of this exhibition, winds up his contribution by transmitting a vibration of colour in movement, an animation with which Ferré himself would happily have imbued all of his creations.

Marcolino Gandini frequented the workshop of draughtsman and engraver Casorati as a very young man and showed his work in several exhibitions in Turin in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties, eventually opting for a geometrical, abstract path with ledges jutting out beyond vertical space.

Back to the index

Gianfranco Ferré

Suit: cardigan and dress

Spring-Summer 1997

Gilded lace dress with sequin appliques, lined in chiffon; gilded lace cardigan lined in tulle

TA 7464-65

Donated by Gianfranco Ferré

Gandini Marcolino

(Turin 1937)

Geometrical abstract painting

1966

Acrylic oil on canvas

Gianfranco Ferré

Suit: fitted coat, blouse and skirt

Spring-Summer 1988

Silk taffeta fitted coat; organza blouse and wool crêpe skirt

TA 7558-61

The section devoted to travel hosts clothing and accessories from the Museo della Moda e del Costume’s collections adapted for wear or lying in suitcases ready to travel, but not necessarily designed for that purpose. The display showcases hats, scarves, glasses, gloves and more bizarre items such as a coat-hanger carrier and an umbrella case, but primarily it consists of bags and suitcases which allow us to carry whatever we may need and which stretch from the beauty case and James Collard Vickery’s linen bag to a suitcase of dreams with labels to remind us of the places visited.
Apart from the duster coat designed for driving, the clothes are basically comfortable suits or jackets, but they are also capable of conjuring up particular situations, such as Emilio Pucci’s two-piece outfit comprising a blouse and a balloon skirt that instantly brings to mind the girl in an open car with a scarf fluttering about her neck that you might have seen in any Hollywood movie in the ‘fifties.
Thus the works on display interact with our own imagination, fuelled by the presence of toys of the period: two tin cars and a tin bus that faithfully reproduce the original modes of transport. The three toys, unique pieces kindly loaned for the occasion, conjure up in turn the car that Elisabeth Chaplin’s nephew Robert is holding in the portrait on display here. Equally strong in its visual impact is the self-portrait of the sculptor Vito Pardo, who has chosen to portray himself as an Audax, the leader of the racing drivers who set out to break a record by driving from Florence to Naples in a single day on 12 June 1897.

Back to the index

Emilio Pucci

“Vivara” scarf

1966

Silk twill

TA 6186

Donated by Emilio Pucci

Givency

Turban

1969-70

Silk twill

GCC 6825

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Vito Pardo

(Venice 1872-1933)

Self-portrait

1923

Cast bronze bust

Donated by the artisti in 194

IRA Jaccob’s London

Cap with glasses

1935-37ca.

Leather, woollen cloth; celluloid glasses

TA 8298-99

Donated by Centro della moda italiana

Overcoat

1930 ca. 

Rainproof silk coat

TA 1863

Donated by Giacomo Cocola

Valentino Boutique

Overcoat

1980 ca.

Woollen dogtooth with velvet detail

GCC 6870

Donated by Cecilia Matteucci Lavarini

Suitcase

1900-15

 Leather

TA 8897

Donated by Luigi Domacavalli

John Collard Vickery

Linen case

1905-10

Calfskin lined with moiré silk

TA 1905

Donated by Antonio Altoviti Avila

Linen case

1900-1910

Hessian embroidered with cotton

TA 13279

Donated by Giuliana Ghisellini

Tipp &Co. limousine

1928 ca. 

Property of Agostino Barlacchi 

Tipp & Co. motor coach

1930 ca.

Cadillac

1950 ca.

Elisabeth Chaplin

(Fointenbleau 1892 - Florence, Fiesole 1982)

Robert with Dog and Toy Car

1930-31

Donated by Elisabeth Chaplin in 1974