There are many holiday movies in cinemas all over the world at the moment, but there is only one film, recently released in Italy, accompanied by a dedicated costume exhibition - "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone.
We all know the plot of this classic children's story by Carlo Collodi that features a peculiar protagonist, a wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy.
Garrone followed the original version of the story, trying to combine at the same time traditions with modern technologies and special effects (Mark Coulier's make-up also helped…) to enhance a few characters or scenes. The narration, that at times is a bit slow, features both grotesque and poetical moments.
These dichotomies - traditions Vs modernity and grotesque Vs poetical - are mirrored also in the costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini.
Like Italian tailor and costume maker Umberto Tirelli, Cantini Parrini is considered a fashion archaeologist: as a child his grandmother, a Florentine seamstress, introduced him to the art of tailoring and he soon started collecting costumes, fascinated by the fact that garments can tell the story of the people who inhabited them, but also of the society in which these people lived.
Cantini Parrini then studied costume design in Florence and Rome, becoming a student of Piero Tosi, working at the Tirelli tailoring house as assistant, and collaborating with Academy Award-winning costume designer Gabriella Pescucci. In the meantime, he kept on developing a massive archive and collection that now features over 4,000 designs, from 1630 to 1990.
So far in his career, Cantini Parrini has created costumes for over 50 films, working on both real-life stories and fables, but excelling in the latter (as you may remember, he designed the costumes for Matteo Garrone's "Tale of Tales", a film with a weak plot, but featuring extraordinary costumes).
It was therefore only natural for Prato's Textile Museum to dedicate an event entirely to Massimo Cantini Parrini's costumes for "Pinocchio".
The exhibition (until 22nd March 2020), includes 32 costumes (all of them made in Rome) from Garrone's film - 25 made by the Tirelli tailoring house, 5 by Costumi d'Arte Peruzzi and 2 by Cospazio 26, while the wigs were created by Rocchetti e Rocchetti.
The event is divided in two sections: the first one is dedicated to the costume designer, his sources and inspirations and his work on and off the set.
This section is very interesting and could be educational for all those young people who would like to work in the fashion industry, but also feel attracted by the performing arts and the possibility of working in dance, film, theatre and opera.
Snippets of interviews with the costume designer allow visitors to discover how Cantini Parrini chose his career, and the importance of building his own archive in his creative process.
This section also features Cantini Parrini's sketches for the costumes for "Pinocchio", illustrations that combine traditional techniques, photography and digital images.
There are also folders on display that include textile samples showing the research made by the costume designer for each costume or for the various accessories.
The highlight of this section is represented by 7 historical garments dating from the 18th and 19th century from Cantini Parrini's personal collection. The costume designer used them as studies and background research to develop ideas for "Pinocchio".
Among them there is a wonderful female jester costume dating from 1898 that was the starting point for some of the costumes donned by the circus characters; a romantic ceremony dress dating between 1834 and 1836, that inspired the gown for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, and a house dress from the 1800s that was reinvented as the snail's fantastic attire.
Pinocchio's jacket was based on an elegant children's suit that is also on display in this section, while Geppetto's look incorporates references to an elegant tailcoat from the 18th century.
A Casentino wool jacket finds echoes in the Talking Cricket's costume and a suit from the 19th century is directly connected to the attires of the Cat and the Fox.
The second section of the exhibition focuses instead on the film costumes, accompanied by images taken from the film, props and the recreation of some of the sets.
As you may imagine the core of the exhibition is Pinocchio's suit. The suit comes in a dark red shade, representing anger, blood, passion, fire, life and shame, elements that characterise Pinocchio's story. Yet there are some differences from Collodi's tale: in the book Pinocchio wore a suit made of paper and a hat made of bread crumbs, but in this film the costume designer opted for a jacquard textile characterised by a crêpe-like texture. Replacing paper with fabric allowed the crew to shoot scenes in different spaces and locations without having to create too many paper suits.
In the film Geppetto makes the suit from his own bedcover, that was once made with a luxurious textile, but it is now worn out. Geppetto uses the fabric to make a doublet, trousers, a hat and a ruff and, while he is a woodcarver and not a tailor so the shapes he creates are basic and simple, he makes a good job.
Geppetto (interpreted by Roberto Benigni) wears in this film a worn out linen suit with a striped waistcoat and breeches. This is actually an out of fashion garment for the end of the 1800s, and shows that Geppetto hasn't been able to afford any clothes for quite a few years.
The Fox and the Cat are also clad in worn out clothes: the former wears a wool coat with an astrakhan collar and polka dot waistcoat; the latter a wool suit and velvet waistcoat with paisley motifs. The two characters are poor and greedy, and their suits combine styles from different times, hinting at a glorious past when they were probably richer. Pinocchio is naïve and young and therefore unable to distinguish between something old fashioned and something new, and, thinking they look elegant, he trusts them.
The Talking Cricket is instead genuinely elegant: being a sort of scholar, he wears a mold-coloured chamois jacket, matched with breeches that show his long legs, while the large bow on his shirt gives him importance and authority.
There are more fantastic animal characters in the story, such as The Judge, a venerable gorilla, that wears a robe decorated with ropes and tassels in dark gold and a muslin ruff.
His style is severe and completely the opposite of Medoro's, a poodle who is the stagecoach driver for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair. In the book he is dressed in a court livery, a tricorn trimmed with gold lace, a chocolate velvet coat with diamond buttons and breeches of crimson velvet. Cantini Parrini kept the look, but changed the colours, coming up with a white court livery from the 1700s, comprising a silk jacket with silver buttons, waistcoat and trousers, tricorn hat, silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes.
There is another animal that has a striking costume in Pinocchio's film – the Snail. This character working as a nanny and a maid for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair wears a monumental gown based on a house dress from the 1800s (that, as stated above, is included in the first part of this exhibition) and is accessorized by a shawl and a bonnet. The costume is worn out by time, dust and…snail slime, and the colours have therefore faded, but can still be detected. The prevailing shade in this costume is mauve, a very fashionable nuance at the end of the 19th century that hinted at calmness and serenity.
There are two costumes for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, one for the character as a child and another as a grown-up, but they look identical and were inspired by designs created in 1836. They are made with cotton gauze, a material that easily helped the costume designer to retain a certain lightness in the dresses and make them look old and a bit worn out. The two gowns come in a diaphanous colour that goes well with the fairy's hair that in the film are pale blue/silvery.
There are two sets of extravagant costumes employed to dress 8 marionettes in Mangiafuoco's theatre and the circus characters.
Mangiafuoco is clad in a dark and scary thick coat, and a woolen jumper, corduroy trousers and a felt hat, but the costumes for the characters in his theatre are borrowed from the Comedy of Manners and are more colourful.
Colombina (Columbine)'s costume consists in a velvet bustier and printed cotton skirt decorated with ribbons, tulle and tassels; Gianduia wears a jacket with elaborate trimmings and silk satin trousers, while the Devil a velvet doublet, with appliqued flame-shaped strips with trimmings and tassels, a motif replicated also on the trousers.
There's extravagance, fantasy and madness in the costumes for the circus characters: they represent freedom, entertainment, playfulness and a joyous ebullience, but there is also a duplicity hidden in each character. While the circus is a ramshackle space, the costumes of characters - such as the ballerina wearing a tutu with a velvet bustier, the horse woman and the three-headed woman (the most complex costume of the entire film) - are grand and transform the performers into mysterious figures.
The idea of dedicating an exhibition to the costumes of a recently released film is a winning formula since it allows people to go and see the film, but also have access to a multimedia experience that complements the experience of going to the cinema. But in the case of Matteo Garrone's "Pinocchio" there's a bonus: while looking at the costumes you will realise that Cantini Parrini did a time-consuming research not just for what regards the silhouettes, shapes or decorative elements for these designs, but also an in-depth study into textiles (and historical menswear as well). Rather than just to advertise the film, these costumes could therefore be employed to promote fabrics, craftsmanship, traditional techniques and fashion.
Image credits for this post
1, 2, 4, 5 and 14. Film stills by Greta De Lazzaris
3. Film still by Alain Parroni
6 - 9. Costume sketches by Massimo Cantini Parrini
10. Ceremony or evening dress, Italy 1836-38, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini
11. Female jester costume for a masked ball, France, 1898, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini
12. Child's ceremony jacket, England, 1885-88, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini
13. Costume for Roberto Benigni as Geppetto in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
15. Costumes for Rocco Papaleo and Massimo Ceccherini as The Cat and The Fox, in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
16. Costume for Davide Marotta as the Talking Cricket in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
17. Costume for Maria Pia Timo as The Snail in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
18. Costumes for Alida Baldari Calabria as the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
19. Costume for Brigida Pappalardi as the Horse Woman as in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Silvia Guidoni/Cospazio 26. Photo by Leonardo Salvini
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