Mention animals and fashion and our minds will immediately conjure up visions of luxurious furs, skins and leathers, but there's definitely more behind the animal and fashion connection than just the proverbial leopard spot.
The Animalia biological kingdom is indeed vast and has provided designers from different times with a wide range of inspirations for both garments and accessories.
A few examples of such inspirations are currently on display at Palazzo Pitti's Galleria del Costume e della Moda (The Costume and Fashion Gallery) in Florence, as part of the "Animalia Fashion" exhibition (through 5th May 2019). The event officially kicked off today to coincide with the opening of the Pitti Uomo trade show.
"Animalia" is conceived as a cabinet of curiosities-like journey through nature and biology, reinterpreted via ready-to-wear and Haute Couture designs.
Extending through 18 rooms and starting with spiders, the event includes comparisons with swans, shells, hedgehogs, parrots, corals, lobsters, puffer fish, babirusa, snakes, scarabs, flies, bees, crocodiles and, last but not least, butterflies.
Zebra and tiger stripes may be not be included, but here there is a lot to take in and discover, especially because the various displays were conceived as natural and science museum installations.
Most of the gowns – covering 18 years of fashion, from 2000 to 2018 – are indeed accompanied by materials borrowed or on loan from other institutions. There are snakes from Florence's Museo di Storia Naturale (Museum of Zoology and Natural History, best known as La Specola); spiders from the Associazione Italiana di Aracnologia (Italian Association of Arachnology), plus drawings and pages from bestiaries and Medieval tacuina sanitatis (health manuals) from the local Museo di Antropologia ed Etnografia (Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography).
There is a lot to take in between comparisons and juxtapositions: a grand and voluminous black dress by Galliano for Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection (Spring/Summer 2017) hints at poisonous spiders, while fluffy and romantic gowns by Dolce & Gabbana (Autumn/Winter 2005-06) and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (S/S 2018) covered in white feather, point at the ethereal beauty of swans.
Colourful parrots inpired instead Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's multicoloured dress (A/W 2009-10), Jean Paul Gaultier's "Oiseau de jeu" gown (A/W 2011-12 Haute Couture) and Dolce & Gabbana's extravagant creation from their latest A/W 2018-19 Alta Moda collection.
These colourful display is accompanied by colourful shoes, including Ferragamo's rainbow sandals and Charlotte Olympia Resort 2013's sandals, characterised by a colourful pompom and a caged heel containing a little bird.
Buprestidae beetle shells cover a gown by On Aura Tout Vu, but on display there are also ready-to-wear pieces such as the ones from Lanvin's A/W 13 collection decorated with prints of large green scarabs. If you like insects, you will also like the colourful brooches on display and Prada/Damien Hirst's "Entomology" bag from 2013.
One display looks at lobsters not through the iconic 1937 lobster dress by Elsa Schiaparelli, but through the S/S 17 version of this creation by Maison Schiaparelli, while also analysing the shape of the lobster exoskeleton via Marios Schwab's "Isabel" (A/W 2015-16) evening gown and Yiqin Yin's dress from her S/S 2014 Haute Couture collection.
While in this section orange prevails, in the one dedicated to corals bright red triumphs: here a long tube-like armour by Gareth Pugh (S/S 18), contrasts with a softer vision by Valentino (S/S 18) and with an intricate number by Yiqin Yin (Autumn/Winter 2013-14 Haute Couture), displayed with a reproduction of a print showing the costume for a sea nimph by Bernardo Buontalenti for Girolamo Bargagli's 1589 play "La Pellegrina".
Danger is evoked by a wide range of garments, including Maiko Takeda's hedgehog's like spiky creations, and Azzedine Alaïa's iconic A/W 2003 wool jacket with crocodile skin applique, a piece fit for an Amazon.
There is a sense of beauty and fear in Alessandro Michele's snakes often included in the pieces he has designed for Gucci, that seem to go pretty well with the snakes under formaldehyde in the displays and with Iris Van Herpen's A/W 2011-12 dress made with snake-like tubes that coil around the body of the wearer.
Among the accessories on display that hint at aggression and fear there are also the fang-shaped fiberglass and carbon fiber wedges made using a blow molding process designed by Van Herpen in collaboration with United Nude in 2012.
Schiaparelli, Valentino, Nino Lettieri and Mary Katrantzou close the final room dedicated to butterflies.
Sadly there is a key designer who combined the animal kingdom and the human form in mesmerising ways, the late Alexander McQueen, who turned women into preys and predators, gazelles and ravenous beasts. Maybe it will be for another time, in the meantime, despite a curatorial selection that at times commits some faux pas, there's plenty to look at here, especially for artists interested in bestiaries.
There is also a final message to take away from "Animalia Fashion": while curators hoped to create a connection between art, fashion, nature and science through this narrative, visitors are indirectly invited to consider how climate change is relentlessly destroying our ecosystems and killing many different species.
Last but not least, this modern and beautiful beastiary reminds us that, there are also techniques and materials that may become extinct if we don't protect them and the artisans who make them or who know how to work with them. Food for thought for those fashionistas and influencers who may pass through the gallery during the Pitti Uomo shows and visit these spaces just to take some selfies with these grand, colourful or technologically advanced gowns in the background.
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