The many Fashion Museums that welcome within their walls.
Italy is known all over the world for several reasons: its cuisine, its history, its art and, undoubtedly, its style. Not by chance, every year the Milan Fashion Week is held that welcomes the most renowned brands together with industry experts and enthusiasts from all over the world.
Anyone who is passionate about fashion cannot, therefore, miss a tour of the main Made in Italy Fashion Museums!
Museums of Fashion: Milan
The journey among the main Italian Fashion Museums can only start from Milan and, specifically, from Palazzo Morando that houses inside the Costume Fashion Museum Immagine. Founded in 2010, together with a permanent collection consisting of structures that tell the historical-urban evolution of Milan, shows with periodic installations the textile heritage of civic collections.
Also in Milan you can admire the exhibition spaces of Armani Silos, which illustrate the history of Giorgio Armani, indisputable icon of Made in Italy.
Museums of Fashion: Florence
Just like Milan, Florence is often the location of events and events related to fashion, first of all Pitti Uomo. The latter, however, is not the only one: there is, for example, the Museum of Fashion and Costume, which is part of the Uffizi Galleries, precisely in the Palazzina della Meridiana; founded in 1983, it was the first Italian state museum entirely dedicated to fashion.
But not only, because in Florence you can also visit the Gucci Museum overlooking Piazza della Signoria, the Ferragamo Museum inside the medieval palace Spini Ferroni and the lace exhibition at Palazzo Davanzati.
Museums of Fashion: Rome
In the beautiful capital of Italy, Rome, fashion lovers can visit the Boncompagni Ludovisi Museum, housed in the homonymous cottage and totally dedicated to both decorative arts, costume and Italian fashion, especially those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Museums of Fashion: Venice
Even Venice, an international attraction, is dotted with museums dedicated to Made in Italy; among these is the Fortuny Museum, inside the Palazzo Pesaro dating back to the sixteenth century, which offers a series of exhibition paths dedicated to the art of painting, to photography, textiles and fashion. In particular, there is a room exclusively reserved for special pieces made by Mariano Fortuniy in the early twentieth century and inspired by classical Greek art.
Moving on to the Lagoon, then, there are two other places not to be missed: the Museum of Fabric and Costume of Palazzo Mocenigo, which tells the story of the clothes of the Venetian patrician of the eighteenth century, and the Shoe Museum at Villa Foscarini Rossi, between Venice and Padua. Near Treviso, finally, there is the Museo dello Scarpone e della Calzatura Sportiva.
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Museums of Fashion: Como
Most of the Italian fabrics are conceived, produced and made in the district of Como, where you can visit the Antonio Ratti Foundation, emblem of artistic, cultural and technological research in the field of textile production. Do not miss the Museo Studio del Tessuto, which brings together more than 3300 textile finds that illustrate the history from the third to the twentieth century.
Museums of Fashion: Naples
A last fundamental stage of the tour between the Italian Fashion Museums is in Naples, in particular the Mondragone Foundation dedicated to Elena Aldobrandini, to whom we owe the foundation of the institution in the seventeenth century. The permanent collections include historical clothes, modern collections and accessories, tracing the history of fashion from the eighteenth century to today.
Other Fashion Museums in Italy
If Milan, Como, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples are the Italian cities where the main Fashion Museums are concentrated, it does not mean that in the rest of the peninsula there are no other places of interest, Indeed: those who love fashion should know that there are other places that allow you to discover and taste the Made in Italy, maybe less known but still interesting. Here are the main ones:
- Museo della Calzatura – Vigevano (PV): the area of Pavia is known for its many shoe factories, so it is absolutely normal that right here is the Shoe Museum, where you can admire the typical footwear from the fifteenth century to the present day;
- Textile Museum – Prato: the district of Prato is a highly strategic area for the production of fabrics and the Fabric Museum of Prato is an example. Founded in 1975, it exhibits hundreds of textile fragments, contemporary samples, machinery, clothes and accessories from Italian and French magazines of the nineteenth century;
- Bijou Museum – Casalmaggiore (CR): the Bijou Museum in Casalmaggiore is a very small museum dedicated to the conservation of ornaments and accessories such as candle holders, cigarette holders, devotional medals and other objects produced locally;
- Cerratelli Foundation – Pontadera (PI): within the Cerratelli Foundation are preserved about 30 thousand costumes created by the homonymous tailor engaged in the production of clothes and costumes for the performing arts. Among the most famous clients are Zeffirelli, De Filippo, Strehler and Visconti;
- Museo dell’Ottica – Agordo (BL): founded by Luxottica, world leader in the design, production and sale of eyewear frames, the Museo dell’Ottica showcases more than 1200 pieces including glasses, telescopes, microscopes and optical instruments;
- Fashion and Costume Museum – Mazzano (BS): the more than 5 thousand objects collected during the travels of the poet Franca Meo are kept in the Fashion and Costume Museum of Mazzano. Among clothes, accessories, umbrellas, gloves and handkerchiefs you can also admire prints, postcards and historical photos;
- Museum of the art of the hat – Ghiffa (VB): with the aim of telling the story of the famous Cappellificio Panizza, the Museum of the art of the hat of Ghiffa is composed of photographic machinery and archives, videos, collections and prints of some hats that have made history.
Now all that remains is to organize your own tour to discover the Made in Italy among the various Fashion Museums scattered throughout Italy and fully enjoy the historical evidence contained within them!
Copertina : Unsplash