Through thirty iconic garments, the exhibition tells how the most important Italian and international stylists have tackled the color white, in a period that goes from the years of the economic boom to the new millennium. On display great classics, such as the historic shirt by Gianfranco Ferré, but also the punk corset by Vivienne Westwood, together with the creations of Armani, Cardin, Galliano, Prada, Versace.
The exhibition, curated by Manuela Rossi, is conceived and produced by the Municipality of Carpi – Musei di Palazzo dei Pio in collaboration with the Carpi Fashion System and is directly linked to the manufacturing vocation of Carpi, the leading city of a textile district capable in the province of Modena to involve about 2.600 companies, with an estimated annual turnover of around 3 billion euros, of which about 30% obtained from exports.
The installation reproduces a catwalk along the loggias of Palazzo dei Pio, transforming it into an ideal time-line on which the models on loan from the Mazzini Research Archives of Massalombarda (RA) review, which with its over 250 dresses and accessories is one of the most complete Italian collections dedicated to the history of fashion. The path thus unfolds along the chronological bracket that goes from 1960 – coinciding with the Economic Boom, which meant the affirmation of the textile industry for Carpi – up to 2010, assumed as a symbolic year of the new challenges that the fashion sector is facing. called to face.
The exhibition opens with a section which, thanks to period magazines and multimedia tools from the archives of the Carpi Fashion Labyrinth, introduces the public to the typical vocabulary of fashion, to the basic concepts that regulate the creative activity of fashion designers, offering therefore the tools necessary to approach the clothes on display in a critical way.
The first period tackled concerns the Sixties and Seventies, interpreted as a moment of strong protest against rules and traditions: the no logo models in use in Swinging London are displayed here – with the stylists choosing not to “brand” the own creations in controversy with the consumerist system – but also the now legendary punk corsets by Vivienne Westwood, up to the imaginative experiments of the Japanese Rei Kawakubo, who, by designing the Comme des Garçons brand at the end of the Seventies, builds an unprecedented bridge between oriental and western style.
The section dedicated to the Eighties and Nineties presents without interruption all the masters of the Golden Age of Made in Italy: Armani, Prada, Versace and above all Gianfranco Ferré, a true philosopher of the white shirt, who apparently transformed simple and humble into an authentic fetish, a candid canvas on which to transfer one's extraordinary intuitions. Alongside highly successful models there are also more daring and curious projects, perhaps not very incisive in terms of commercial success but historical in their own way: such as the surreal creations of the little-known Bobo Kaminsky, the collective signature of the group of Venetian stylists from which Renzo Rosso would emerge.
The last section looks at the New Millennium, at the evolution of style and at the introduction of new materials – the analysis of fabrics, from the most immediate to the experimental ones, is one of the leitmotifs of the entire exhibition – passing through the creations of John Galliano to the most recent Prada designer products.
April 15 - June 12, 2016
WHITE. White in fashion
1960-2010: from Pierre Cardin to Prada
