Two centuries of fashion and textile design

Displayed in chronological order, the exhibition illustrates the extraordinary transformations of textile design and the changes in fashion that have taken place over a period of time in which the relationship between tradition and modernity, between the uniqueness of the artistic product and the replicability of the serial product, became the theme of a heated debate on the applied arts. With their artistic and professional experiences (as evidenced by the exhibited works by William Morris, Mariano Fortuny, Raoul Dufy, Gio Ponti, Lucio Fontana, Elsa Schiaparelli, Maria Monaci Gallenga), the protagonists of this long journey – textile designers and fashion creators – have nevertheless left a trace and an important contribution in the history of style and design.

All the objects are from the Museum’s collections: some have never been seen before because they have recently been added to the collection and will thus be exhibited for the first time – such as the late 19th-century two-piece wedding dress (Fig. 1), the 1920s, matrix-printed tunic dress of Maria Monaci Gallenga (Fig. 2), the evening cape of the Atelier Elsa Schiaparelli, the 1950s cocktail dress from the Roman tailor Fanucchi (Fig. 3) – while others have been specially restored, making it possible to finally display them to the public in complete safety.

The only exceptional loan is the rare example of a women’s day dress dated 1820-1825 in printed cotton canvas from the archive of Massimo Cantini Parrini (Fig. 4), the award-winning costume designer featured in the Museum’s cultural calendar in 2019 with the exhibition on his costumes for the film “Pinocchio” by Matteo Garrone.