Palazzo Pitti, location of Gucci’s resort show and last year’s Karl Lagerfeld-Vision of Fashion exhibion, continues to rediscover its fashion legacy. The latest project is “Il Museo Effimero della Moda” (The Ephemeral Museum of Fashion ), a collaboration between Galleria degli Uffizi and Palais Galliera, prodced by Fondazione Pitti Immagine Discovery. The peculiarity of The Ephemeral Museum lies in its novel conceptions of staging and thematic content. The exhibition, in eighteen rooms, will showcase nearly two hundred items – clothing and accessories – dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. For many, it will be the first time they are removed from their storage boxes, others will be exhibited for the last time before being put back into the archives because of their fragility. The clothes, punctuating each room’s theme, were brought back to light thanks to the wonderful work done by the restorers of the Galleria del Costume and the Palais Gallieria. They were created by the world’s most prestigious dressmakers and fashion ateliers, from Florence to Rome, Milan, Paris and New York, including the House of Worth; Mariano Fortuny Venice; Rosa Genoni; Atelier Emilio Schubert, Rome; Roberto Capucci, Maison Vionnet; Irene Galitzine, Rome; Elsa Schiaparelli; Jole Veneziani; Biki, Maison romana d’alta moda Carosa, Nina Ricci, Gianfranco Ferré, and Christian Lacroix.
Contemporary fashions are also well represented with recent acquisitions by the Palais Galliera, shown for the first time here in Florence, and some items from the Palazzo Pitti collection. And the show includes a foray into the world of today’s fashions with selections from the latest collections by Gucci, Margiela, Bless, Fendi, Armani, Valentino, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, John Galliano and Lanvin. The catalogue photographs were shot by artist Katerina Jebb.
“The Ephemeral Museum is an occasion; an opportunity to reinvent Palazzo Pitti’s Galleria del Costume e della Moda,” said Olivier Saillard, ideator and chief curator of the exhibition, Director of the Palais Galliera, author of performances and art projects and curator of the exhibition “Balenciaga, l’oeuvre au noir” just opened at Musée Bourdelle in Paris. “On mannequins of wood and of wax, or abandoned on armchairs and seats, suspended as soft sculptures, reclining like sleeping beauties, the garments are the shipwrecked waifs of a mysterious, fragile and caduceus museum. It will disappear in a few months’ time, victim and witness to passing time. It is our hope that it may reborn in another time, another place, within the fickle walls of a museum, in the forgotten spaces of a building. That it will continue to raise questions about the transient nature of fashion but also about its poetic vitality; that in its nomadic meanders, it will to draw together sublime foundations and shifting frontiers; as it incessantly redefines itself, that it will become most beautiful, the fairest of all the world’s museums.”
Florence, Palazzo Pitti
Galleria del Costume and the Contini-Bonacossi Collection June 14th, 2017 – October 22nd, 2017
