Pop star Madonna celebrated her 66th birthday last night with a private visit to the Pompeii excavation site. During her visit, she toured the House of Menander, the House of the Ceii, and the Great Theater. Madonna also met with performers from a local youth project, to which she pledged a €250,000 donation.
While most of us can't afford a private tour of an archaeological site, the fascination with places like Pompeii is easy to understand.
Pompeii and Herculaneum, both buried in AD 79 during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, have consistently inspired fashion designers (and it wouldn't be surprising to see them featured in future Dolce & Gabbana collections, especially since Madonna has been a guest of the design duo during this trip in Italy).
As seen in previous posts, staying updated on new archaeological discoveries can spark fresh ideas for designers and antiquities and archaeology have often served as the backdrop for advertising campaigns and photo shoots (remember Gucci's Pre-Fall 2019 campaign?).
While fashion shoots in such settings usually create a contrast between the clothing and the sites' frescoes, mosaics and architectures, there was one case where the designs seamlessly matched with the archaeological environment.
As mentioned in yesterday's post, in the mid-1950s Emilio Pucci designed a collection inspired by Sicily, entitled "Siciliana". The collection featured blouses, shorts, and trousers influenced by the Byzantine mosaics in the Cathedral of Monreale (a theme that resurfaced in Dolce & Gabbana’s A/W 2013-14 collection).
The photoshoot for Pucci's collection took place in the Benedictine cloister of Monreale, where Roman actress Lilli Cerasoli posed among the columns wearing designs adorned with motifs drawn from the 208 mosaic-adorned columns of the cloister.
In addition to these pieces, a swimsuit from the collection was photographed in the remarkable setting of Villa Romana del Casale, an elaborate Roman villa near the town of Piazza Armerina, known for its early 4th-century AD artwork.
Excavations at Villa Romana del Casale revealed Roman mosaics and opus sectile floor coverings spanning 3,500 m², remarkably well-preserved. Some of the most iconic mosaics decorate the "Room of the Gymnasts," also known as the "Chamber of the Ten Maidens" (Sala delle Dieci Ragazze).
This mosaic, titled the "Coronation of the Winner" by scholars, depicts women athletes competing in weightlifting, discus throwing, running, and ball games. Some wear accessories and jewelry, and sport intricate hairstyles. In the lower left side, a toga-clad official holds the victor's crown and palm frond, while the central figure is crowned as the winner.
This mosaic has consistently attracted the attention of fashion designers due to the athletes' two-piece outfits, which closely resemble modern bikinis.
Of the ten women shown, nine are wearing this look which is actually not a bikini, but a combination of the subligaculum (a loincloth wrapped around the thighs and tied at the waist; from the Latin subligo, "to tie underneath") and a strophium (a breastband often made of linen).
Pucci recreated the outfit from the Piazza Armerina mosaics, using modern fabrics instead of linen. The resulting bikini was photographed at the Villa Romana del Casale, right beside the ancient mosaics that at the time were still being excavated (spot a random worker in one of the images...).
The photos, along with those taken at Monreale Cathedral, were shot by German photographer Elsa Haertter, who had honed her impeccable sense of style after years in Paris and Milan.
Today a fashion photoshoot with a model lying or walking on the mosaics would likely be prohibited for preservation reasons, in this case the composition was perfect as the model looked like one of the girls represented in the mosaics. The blend of simplicity, modernity, and antiquity in the images creates a striking visual that still feels surprisingly contemporary.
The mosaics show Roman female athletes in what can be seen as early sportswear rather than swimwear, while Pucci's design, inspired by these historical outfits, offer a fascinating blend of historical inspiration and modern design and Elsa Haertter's photos capture this fusion beautifully, remaining iconic and unmistakably summery.
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