'A Special View of Salvatore Ferragamo’s Atelier' Exhibition in Milan

 
'A Special View of Salvatore Ferragamo’s Atelier' is the intriguing title of a special exhibition set in the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera, among the most prominent of Italy’s art institutions, founded in the heart of Milan in 1776.
  Ferruccio Ferragamo, Fulvia Ferragamo, Wanda Ferragamo & Giovanna Gentile Ferragamo 
Stretched through the academy’s set designing classrooms, all the way to the Sala Napoleonica, the show is running alongside Milan Women’s Fashion Week for three days only, from Sunday, February 23rd, when it was unveiled at an exclusive evening reception co-chaired by Ferruccio Ferragamo, Chairman of Salvatore Ferragamo, and Franca Sozzani, Editor in Chief of Vogue Italia. Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank mingled with international socialites and fashion icons such as Miroslava Duma, Princess Melusine Ruspoli and Leigh Lezark.

  Ferragamo Designer Massimiliano Giornetti 

 
The Brera Academy, where art has been taught and studied for more than two centuries, was setting for this event. Generations of students from all over the world have found here the means and skills to follow their calling to art, acquiring the proper techniques to transform ideas, colours and materials into veritable artworks. Like the most gifted of students at Brera, Salvatore Ferragamo was guided by clear standards of beauty, an inexhaustible curiosity for the most unexpected materials, and the extraordinary ability to transform them into beautiful, consistently innovative handcrafts. Innovative in the brilliant choice of colour and style that made them true artworks; but especially surprising in the exquisite workmanship of materials that made them masterpieces - witness the five iconic models chosen by Mrs Sozzani to occupy a place of honour in the display: ‘Rainbow’, ‘Renaissance’, ‘Red’, ‘Butterfly’, and ‘Invisibile’.
  Miroslava Duma wearing Salvatore Ferragamo S/S 14   
Enlarged photographs of Salvatore Ferragamo’s original atelier at Palazzo Spini Feroni, the medieval seat of the company on the right bank of the river Arno, artfully recreated its atmosphere to ambient the original hand tools used by the Maestro.
  Hilary Swank 
In homage to Vogue Italia’s fiftieth anniversary, falling this year, Mrs Sozzani has also picked fifty of Salvatore Ferragamo’s most notable re-editions from the archives of the company’s museum to complete the exhibition, sitting side by side with the long-acknowledged artworks housed in the halls of Brera. Her choice included several milestones in the history of Italian fashion and design, cuttingedge stylistic intuitions shaped using the most diverse materials, such as ‘Gondola’, with its hemp upper and cork wedge; the cellophane sandal ‘Splendida’; ‘Mirrors’, featuring silvered glass covering the heel; and ‘Flowers’, the multi-coloured knot-stitched raffia sandal, to name a few.
Alison Brie Photos © Salvatore Ferragamo.

How do you like this special peek into the designer`s atelier?