Gianfranco Ferré and Maria Luigia: unexpected similarities

Until January 15th there’s time to discover Gianfranco Ferré and Maria Luigia: unexpected similarities one of the most interesting and suggestive Italian fashion exhibitions of 2016, that does not take place in fashion capital like Milan, Florence, or Rome, but in Parma.

The exhibition is part of the initiatives for the bicentenary of the arrival in Parma of Duchess Maria Luigia of Habsburg-Lorraine, and it is combined with the exhibition Neoclassic on Michel Comte, in a whole project called Ferré and Comte / DETAILS. Great interpreters between fashion and art created by Alberto Nodolini and produced by Ankamoki.

Gianfranco Ferré and Maria Luigia: unexpected similarities

The exhibition, curated by Gloria Bianchini and Alberto Nodolini in collaboration with Fondazione Gianfranco Ferré, celebrates the creativity of Gianfranco Ferré through a dozen of theatrical and metaphysical sets, offering a wide selection of Haute Couture and ready-to-wear items in which emerge “unexpected similarities” between the “architect of Italian fashion” – Ferré’s nickname – and the taste and times of the “Good Duchess” Maria Luigia of Habsburg-Lorraine.

Ferré: the facets of a genius

As the highly decorated rooms of a Victorian mansion house tell the tastes and habits of its owner, so the spaces of the exhibition narrate the many facets of Ferré’s creative soul. This exhibition is like the staging of “Made in Italy”: handcrafted and technically perfect details inspired by costume history, but responding to the aesthetic demands of contemporary life.

The style of the past and present

The Duchess Maria Luigia of Habsburg-Lorraine, Napoleon’s second wife, is just a chance to show Ferré’s passion for the greatest women of history through 60 fashion items. Artistic and literary movements at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth century like neo-classicism, romanticism, orientalism, Moorish and Gothic materialize in rhinestone studded jackets, black gowns with white tacking threads reinterpreted as Middle-Eastern embroidery, strap applications resembling architectural elements, buttons  worthy of royal jewels, voluminous sleeves, theatrical crinolines, laser-cut fur coats reminiscent of cathedrals’ rose windows, and finally, in high-waisted empire dresses like the ones worn by the Muses and the ladies at Napoleon’s court.

Fashion: culture and industry

Certainly this can’t be considered one of those hyper-conceptual international exhibitions destined to change fashion curation, but the unusual public of students, scholars, journalists, tailors, seamstresses and fashion lovers, coming from all over Italy, testified once again the need of shows like these to spread the culture of fashion in our country. Fashion is an industry that heavily impacts on the national GDP, but unlike America, France and England, that have ministries or institutions that politically represent the whole field, Italians – the inventors of ready-to-wear – are the last to appreciate it.
But this time the city of Parma did justice to Italian fashion!

Alessandro Masetti – The Fashion Commentator

Gianfranco Ferré and Maria Luigia: unexpected similarities
Governor’s Palace
Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi, Parma
September 30, 2016 – January 15, 2017

Info: www.mostredettagli.com

Ferré and Comte / Details. Great interpreters between fashion and art is a project promoted by the City of Parma in collaboration with Fondazione Gianfranco Ferré, with the support of the Istituto per i beni artistici culturali e naturali/ Regione Emilia Romagna, the National Academy of Fine Arts in Parma, with the contribution of Fiere di Parma, Cosmoproject, and produced by Ankamoki.