contessanally: Milano – Palazzo Reale: Italiana: Italy Through the Lens of Fashion, 1971–2001

Milano Milano – Palazzo Reale

Italiana: Italy Through the Lens of Fashion, 1971–2001

At Palazzo Reale, until May 6, Italiana: Italy through the lens of fashion 1971-2001 is a project in the form of an exhibition and a book published by Marsilio, conceived and curated by Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi. Italiana celebrates the Italian fashion system over the seminal three decades in which it cemented relations and exchanges between the members of a generation of designers, industrialists, artists, architects and intellectuals that defined Italy’s image in the world and put it on the map of international culture.

Gucci – Tom Ford – 1996-1997

pinstripe and red velvet - his and hers trouser suits

L’Uomo Vogue - “ Unilook - Lui e Lei alla Stessa Maniera”

photograhs - Oliveiro Toscani – December 1971

www.palazzorealemilano.it

www.italiana.cameramoda.it
www.marsilioeditori.it

“This exhibition recounts the evolution not just of fashion but also of Italian society over the period from 1971 to 2001.”
Domenico Piraina - Director of Palazzo Reale

Curators Stefano Tonchi and Maria Luisa Frisa, Carlo Capasa Domenico Piraina

Photograph by Francesco De Luca – courtesy Karla Otto Milan

Diorama Room

A diorama reconstructs a Wunderkammer, exalting and celebrating the virtuoso and perilous relations between objects of fashion and objects of design. It evokes the eclectic and metaphysical landscapes-often the result of the visionary imagination of Occhiomagico and Studio Alchimia, which inhabited the covers and pages of Domus and Domus Moda, the supplement launched by Alessandro Mendini in 1981 to introduce fashion into the debate over the Italian culture of design.

Cinzia Ruggeri – dress with leds – 1982

Gaetano Pesce – Dalilatre for Cassina

Ettore Sottsass – Ultrafragola for Poltronova 1970-2018

Krizia – pleated jumpsuit – 1981-1982

Archizoom Associati – Mies-Poltrona for Poltronova -1970-2018

Pietro Chiesa – Luminator for Fontana Arte

Gianfranco Ferre – Fall/Winter 1988-1989

Bo-Bo Kaminsky (stilisti David Mantej and Evelina Barilli) – Fall/Winter 1984-1985

Gianni Versace – Spring/Summer 1992

Italiana is an adjective, used here as a noun to indicate the complex set of traits, styles and atmospheres that define Italian culture in all its forms and expressions. The subtitle Italy through the Lens of Fashion—which in Italian, L’Italia vista dalla moda (literally “Italy as Seen from Fashion”), evokes “The Earth as Seen from the Moon,” Pier Paolo Pasolini’s episode of the film The Witches (1967) which presents fashion as the point of view privileged by the narration and the asserts and the need to take a new critical approach.

Photograph courtesy Karla Otto Milan

Pierpaolo Piccioli and Donatella Versace

Gulp – 1978 c. – Walter Albini -1981

Giorgio Armani - Fall/Winter 1991-1992

Missoni – Fall/Winter 1991- 1992

The year 1971 symbolically marks the break with high fashion and the beginning of the period of Italian ready-to-wear: it was the year in which Walter Albini chose Milan for the first show of the line that bore his name, the so-called “unified collection.” And it was the year in which the women’s liberation movement emerged in Italy. The date 2001 is one of emblematic closure — the following year, after making its debut on financial markets in 1999, the Euro would enter into circulation.

Photograph courtesy Karla Otto Milan

Oliviero Toscani and Rosita Missoni

Francesco Vezzoli - Self-Portrait with Vera Lehndorff as Veruschka and Gianpaolo Barbieri – 2001

Photograph courtesy Karla Otto Milan

Francesco Vezzoli, Miuccia Prada and Stefano Tonchi

Giorgio Armani – Fall/Winter – 1993-1994

Gianni Versace – Spring/Summer - 1982

Giorgio Armani - Fall/Winter – 1986-1987

Photograph courtesy Karla Otto Milan

“Mine is not a mannish woman. She is simply a woman who has adopted the intelligent and functional formulas of male attire. Not because she wants to look like a man, but because at eight o’clock in the morning, with an hour to get dressed and washed, it’s nice to know that with a jacket, a shirt and a pair of pants the problem is solved.”

Giorgio Armani – 1980

Photograph by Francesco De Luca – courtesy Karla Otto Milan

Project Room

The surface of the industrial workbench is turned into a showcase to focus attention on fashion as a designed object. The horizontality of the bench is mirrored in the vertical display cabinets on the walls: the more experimental items of knitwear and clothing are laid out flat to emphasize the qualities of their construction and their graphic designs. From the avant-garde experiences of Archizoom Associati's dressing design and the experimental research of Nanni Strada to the decorative tours-de-force of innovative knitwear, represented by examples of excellence like Pour Toi, Missoni, Krizia and Fuzzi. The unprecedented juxtaposition of these items forms a landscape that reveals a still little-known quality of Italian fashion design.