Mar
16
From 10 March to 25 June 2012
Fortuny Palace
Curated by: Judith Clark and Maria Luisa Frisa
Commissioned by: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
A wonderful exhibition dedicated to Diana Vreeland, fashion icon, famous fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar, editor in chief of Vogue and special consultant for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will be opened on the 10th March 2012 at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice .
The first individual exhibition dedicated to the extraordinary and complex figure of Diana Vreeland (Paris, 1903- New York, 1989) will explore the many different aspects of her work and will attempt to offer a fresh approach to interpreting her style and thought.
The exhibition will try to restore a sense of the “magnificent gait” which marked Vreeland’s journey through fashion in the 20th century. The visitor will be able to admire garments straight out of the history of fashion that have been brought to Italy for the first time: numbers by Yves Saint Laurent and Givenchy worn by Diana Vreeland, on loan from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art; some extraordinary pieces by Balenciaga belonging to the Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum; the most iconic creations of Saint Laurent from the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent, and, finally, precious garments that shaped the history of fashion of the last century, loaned from prestigious private collections and company archives, including numbers by Chanel, Schiaparelli, Missoni, Pucci, and costumes from the ballets.
The aim of Diana Vreeland after Diana Vreeland is to decontextualise the many pieces that make up the kaleidoscopic career of the fashion editor and to reconnect them in a new interpretation of the many different meanings that underlie her now legendary professional and life experience. The exhibition will not limit itself to merely displaying the garments, but will “short-circuit” time, the articles on show, and their very “aura” to show how fashion is a complex phenomenon, and a privileged position from which to observe and interpret the tastes and trends of contemporary society.
