IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN FLORENCE THIS SUMMER, be sure to check out a new exhibition by Fondazione Ferragamo and Museo Salvatore Ferragamo. Running from May 18 until April 7, 2017, Across Art and Fashion will focus on the long-running relationship between these two creative fields.
THE EXHIBITION WILL DRAW ON the life of the ever-inspiring Salvatore Ferragamo, who was fascinated by 20th-century avant-gardism and collaborated with many of the biggest artists of the time. A Ferragamo pump, inspired by the work of American artist Kenneth Noland in the 1950s, is a case in point and will be one of the many pieces on show. But it will also extend beyond the designer’s own experiences and feature some of the most iconic examples of the art-fashion exchange: a dress by Elsa Schiaparelli designed in collaboration with Salvador Dalì in the 1930s, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a dress from the 1960s by Yves Saint Laurent that was inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian, on loan from the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent. Also on show will be Hussein Chalayan’s wooden corset from the Kyoto Costume Institute and a 2005 dress by Jun Takahashi (founder of Undercover) from The Museum at FIT in New York.
CURATED BY Maria Luisa Frisa, Enrica Morini, Stefania Ricci and Alberto Salvadori, the exhibition will feature clothing, accessories, fabrics, works of art, books, periodicals and photographs from the collections of both Italian and international museums, as well as an art installation created specifically for the occasion.
IT WILL SPAN THE AGES, from the work of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Futurists, to the school of Surrealism and so-called Radical fashion. The exhibition will also hone in on the ateliers where artists met and studied in the 1950s and 1960s, and chart the birth of celebrity culture. It will then explore the artistic experimentation of the 1990s and, ultimately, look at how the worlds of art and fashion are engaging in this day and age.
ONE OF THE MOST UNIQUE ELEMENTS OF THE EVENT is that it is a collaboration among some of the best-known cultural institutions in Florence and beyond, from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale and Gallerie degli Uffizi, to Galleria d’arte moderna e Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti, Museo Marino Marini, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo and Museo del Tessuto in Prato. As if we needed another excuse to visit the picturesque Tuscan town.
Read this and more stories in Luxury magazine, out with The National on Thursday, May 12.
sdenman@thenational.ae