Fashion exhibition in Trieste: Ode to fashion

People have always portrayed themselves with clothing. In the ITS Trieste the phenomenon in the exhibition “The Many Lives of a Garment”.

Outfits of famous people staged like relics: Tilda Swinton on the left, Charlotte Rampling on the right Photo: Massimo Gardone

At the beginning there is the closet. According to the internationally renowned fashion curator and historian Olivier Saillard and Emanuele Coccia, philosophy professor at the Paris École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. And by that they mean the museum.

When we open it in the morning to choose our wardrobe for the coming day, we transform ourselves into viewers of our own fashion exhibition at that moment. In the closet is the collection that, whether we like it or not, makes us the curator of our appearance in the outside world.

The shop window with the mannequins is the next exhibition space we encounter; a street museum that is now and again an art gallery. For lack of other options, Andy Warhol held his first exhibition in 1961 in the window of the New York luxury boutique Bonwit Teller. Five paintings formed the background for summer-dressed mannequins.

That fashion and museums are ultimately an inseparable pair is the basic assumption of Olivier Saillard and Emanuele Coccia for their joint exhibition “The Many Lives of a Garment” at the ITS Academy Museum of Art in Fashion in Trieste. In twelve chapters they illuminate the staging of the body and thus the self through clothing in a wide variety of everyday settings.

Body shapes still recognizable

There is the piece of clothing that lies on the floor, taken off, and in which you can still see the shape of the body. But the outfits in the classic museum display case are admired reverently like relics, as they promise an encounter with their wearers Tilda Swinton and Charlotte Rampling, icons of our time.

A haute couture dress that a mannequin carries in front of it makes it clear that this art of tailoring primarily presents itself. Due to the unmistakable signature of the fashion designer, the dress is an advertisement for the wearer in that the image of the house is transferred to her. Even in a state of decay, you can feel how creations from Dior and Balenciaga, bleached by light and shapeless by wear, make you painfully aware.

Fashion always means reading, and with the magazine or book page, whether in the exhibition catalog or in the novel of world literature, one enters a museum or exhibition room again. According to Saillard and Coccia, clothes materialize in words as well as in photographs, drawings or silk.

The exhibition impresses with clever ideas, such as when the changing rooms become a video room for short films that were produced for the Florentine men’s fashion fair Pitti Immagine. They replace the mirror when trying on things, which means self-reflection in self-portrayal; but also self-deception, an imagined self. He is joined by the imagined other, as the models conjure up in the videos when they describe emblematic dresses of important personalities from their memories.

Showcases with favorite clothing items

A happy idea to open the show into the city is the glass showcase intended for clothing items on loan from the citizens of Trieste. Whoever has a favorite piece of clothing whose story he or she would like to share is welcome.

Alda Balestra von Stauffenberg, a former model from Trieste, makes the glamorous start with the fantastic dress that Valentino gave her for her wedding. Dress mannequins are also grouped around this exhibit as supposed exhibition visitors. They wear competition designs from the approximately 20-year-old collection of the ITS Academy Museum of Art in Fashion, the first museum for contemporary fashion in Italy, according to its founder Barbara Franchin.

The collection’s now around 15,000 portfolios, in addition to around 1,100 items of clothing, around 300 accessories and pieces of jewelry and more than 700 photographs, are unique and unprecedented worldwide, both in terms of fashion and the museum as an institution. “The portfolios,” says Emanuele Coccia, “make a fashion exhibition possible without any clothes, Olivier’s absolute dream.”

Every year, graduates from fashion and art schools from all over the world submit their portfolios to take part in the International Talent Support (ITS) fashion competition. Knowing full well that they will not get their folders, some of which are extremely elaborate, back. They remain in Trieste and become part of the ITS Academy collection.

Innovative fashion dreams

Since the competition is not about designs that have to be sold, and those involved have the freedom to express their ideas alone, the most innovative, radical and experimental fashion dreams come true in the portfolios.

These can also be nightmares, as is now the case with Shannon Poupard, whose knitted ensembles adorn mushroom clouds, tanks and fighter bombers – without affecting the youthful silhouette and fresh colors of the pieces. The French designer was one of the few finalists without an award, but this is not a tragedy thanks to the new format of the 21st edition of the ITS Contest.

Barbara Franchin now foregoes the fashion shows that have to be laboriously organized. Instead, in a five-day workshop, she brings the participants into contact with established fashion designers and artists, but also with important experts in the fashion industry.

Some of the prizes awarded also serve this goal. The honorable mention for Wanqi Huang is linked to a solo exhibition of her photo series “Curtain” at the renowned photo gallery of the Fondazione Sozzani in Milan. Initially protected from prying eyes behind a curtain, the naked female body gradually emerges provocatively into the picture in the selfies – nudity and sexuality are still associated with shame in China.

Marcel Sommer’s menswear collection, inspired by architectural brutalism, was also praised, combined with the six-month “Pitti Immagine Tutoring & Consulting” program. Other prizes, for example for sportswear, artwork, jewelry and digital fashion or fashion film, are worth 3,000 to 15,000 euros. It’s hard to discern a trend among the award-winning designs, unless it means individuality and stubbornness.