Ties that bind
From Elsa Schiaparelli’s close friendship and work with Salvador Dali to Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dresses from his seminal 1965 autumn collection, fashion houses have had a long working relationship with their art world contemporaries.
Across Art and Fashion – a new exhibition by Fondazione Ferragamo and Museo Salvatore Ferragamo that runs till April 2017 – explores and celebrates this longstanding relationship.
Held in collaboration with Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria d’arte moderna e Galleria del Costume di Palazzo Pitti, Museo Marino Marini and Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence, as well as Museo del Tessuto in Prato, the exhibition showcases clothing, accessories, artwork, books and photographs from private and museum collections.
Exhibit articles range from pre-Raphaelite to Futurist and surrealist works, including Italian couturier Schiaparelli’s lobster dress, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The famed crustacean was a common motif employed by Dali, who designed the print for the white organdie gown which was made even more notorious by an eight-page spread in a spring 1937 issue of Vogue, modelled by none other than American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.
To commemorate the exhibition, artist, writer, performer, musician and designer, Riccardo Benassi was commissioned to do an art installation in the store windows at the Salvatore Ferragamo flagship in Florence.
Titled Every quote is a note, please reply, Benassi was inspired by quotes from both fashion designers and artists alike, translating them into what he calls a “continuous visual poem”.
Each window responds to a particular quote on the relationship between the two mediums – the artist’s attempt at creating a dialogue with those who have come before him.
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