From the 18th of March 2023 through to the 2nd of July, the San Domenico Museums in Forlì will host the exhibition ‘The Art of Fashion. The Age of Dreams and Revolutions, 1789-1968’ conceived and produced by Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi of Forlì. Directed by Gianfranco Brunelli and curated by Cristina Acidini, Enrico Colle, Fabiana Giacomotti and Fernando Mazzocca, the exhibition is dedicated to the fascinating relationship between art and fashion over three centuries: from the Ancien Régime to the second half of the 20th century.

The exhibition includes more than 300 artworks, including paintings, sculptures, accessories, period and contemporary clothing, which from the 18th century through the French Revolution, Romanticism, the Macchia, Impressionism, Symbolism and all the 20th-century Avant-gardes up to the present, bring into dialogue the great masterpieces of art history with the greatest testimonies of fashion history, identify a relationship between art and fashion.

Over 120 of BONAVERI’s bust forms are being used to stage a presentation, including bespoke Sartorial bust forms, a number of historical forms, which perfectly enhance the garments selected for the exhibition.

 

 

The Forlì exhibition brings to Italy masterpieces from important international museum institutions such as, among others, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva, the Klimt Foundation and the MAK- Museum of Applied Arts, in Vienna, the Galerie Neue Meister in Dresden, Le Domaine de Trianon | Château de Versailles, the Kunstmuseum de l’Hague, the Museum National in Krakow, and the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

Also prestigious are the loans of the clothes and accessories from fundamental fashion houses such as Giorgio Armani, Curiel, Prada, Christian Dior Couture, Gucci Historical Archives, Maison Valentino, Lanvin, Max Mara; and from important institutions such as Palazzo Morando | Costume Moda Immagine in Milan, Renato Balestra Archives, the Stibbert Museum in Florence, Gianfranco Ferré Research Center, the Fashion and Costume Museum of Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Galitzine Historical Archives, the Ferragamo Museum in Florence, the Boncompagni Ludovisi Museum in Rome, the Costume Museum-Castle of Donnafugata in Ragusa, the Caproni Aeronautical Museum in Trento, the Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo Museum and the Correr Museum in Venice, the Capogrossi Archive Foundation in Rome, the Germana Marucelli Archive in Milan, the Mazzini Archives in Massa Lombarda, Fortuny in Venice, the Tirelli Trappetti Collection in Rome and the Massimo Cantini Parrini Collection.

 

 

Art is the mirror and inspiration, the expression and dissemination of patterns. From the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, the relationship between artists and fashion became more intense: artists who, in addition to portraying elegance, designed clothes and managed fashion communication, stylists who collected works of art and made them the object of inspiration or the symbol of their own contemporaneity.

The relationship between art and fashion has been growing ever since in a play of parts that will lead fashion itself to become an art, a look at the things of the world such as philosophy, literature, cinema, and to be inspired by art itself, in references that since the second half of the 20th century have made the entire history of art, a constant, unavoidable reference point, especially for the made in Italy.