"The Art of Fashion" or "The Fashion of Art" exhibition?

La
M

oda
is not just a simple way of dressing, but it is also an
art
that has spanned the centuries and eras, transforming and adapting to the changes of
society
and
culture
. It is along these lines that the first major exhibition titled “The Art of Fashion: The Age of Dreams and Revolutions, 1789-1968.” set up in the halls of the San Lorenzo Civic Museum a Forli and promoted by the Cassa dei Risparmi of Forli, open to the public from March 18 and can be visited until July 2, 2023.

The extraordinary event celebrates the profound intertwining between fashion and art, two sister disciplines that have always dialogued and reflected each other, offering visitors an experience
unique
e overwhelming among paintings, accessories, sculptures, vintage and contemporary clothing.

The exhibition, in fact, houses more than 300 works (including nearly 200 paintings and sculptures and 110 dresses) selected from prestigious Italian and International museum institutions such as The Uffizi Galleries by Florence, the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts by Vienna, the National Archaeological Museum by Naples and the
Musée d’Orsay
by Paris alternating with the works of major international stylists and designers such as

Valentino, Chanel, Dior

e

Ferragamo

those of famous artists such as
Boccioni, Hayez, Mondrian, Canova, Matisse, Boldini
e Fountain.

The dichotomy between artistic and costume production is perfectly matched in a narrative that aims to enhance their most intimate links transporting the visitor on a long and articulated journey through two centuries of history, starting from the

Ancien Régime

to the
Pop Art
and celebrating the gradual liberation of the female body from the constriction of clothing.

“Fashion expresses as a perennial value the change, which is the strength of its development: to be continuously new and achieve a consent, i.e., a form of preservation for their own news” As the director of the exhibition says
Gianfranco Brunelli
, fashion has always been inspired by art, and art in turn has narrated fashion, painted it, sculpted it and depicted it over the centuries in a continuous dialogue between the parts.

But the exhibition is not limited only to the telling of this fascinating aspect; in fact, it is considered first of its kind for recreating a showcase that showcases the intrinsic link between fashion and art in relation to its own social, symbolic and communicativerole .

Fashion, like any art form, arose from the need to reflect, like a mirror, the social reality in which we live, therefore, as stated by the sociologist Georg Simmel in the essay “Fashion.”, is considered for all intents and purposes a phenomenon social through which people try to distinguish themselves from others and at the same time express their individuality.

The continuing desire for
Uniformity
and the contradictory need for
Differentiation
are, therefore, the two essential aspects for fashion to be born, evolve and continue to exist over time as a means through which people can show their status social, expressing one’s individuality and promote change in society.

But how does its diffusion into society take place?

It is interesting to observe this process referred to as
“Fashion Game”
in which the higher social classes use fashion as a tool to distinguish themselves from those lower who, in turn, seek to emulate it to conform to them.

When, however, the difference between the two classes becomes too blurred and fashion too widespread, it begins to lose its distinctive status and as a result people look for a new way to distinguish themselves by changing their style.

Fashion is a dynamic force that drives toward continuous change and manifests itself through the use of clothes, accessories and lifestyles, but it is also present in all other areas of culture such as
art, music
o
architecture
which are sometimes interconnected with each other.

The exhibition
“The Art of Fashion”
offers all fans and non-fans a unique and unmissable opportunity to learn about and appreciate fashion as art and as cultural and social expression in a journey through the eras that helped define the fashion world as we see it today.