Abcdaire

A for "Anni d'oro", the golden years of Italian fashion and hats. As in fairy tales, the decade opens with a ball, orchestrated in 1951 by Giovanni Battista Giorgini at his home in Florence, Villa Torregiani, the perfect setting of dreams come true.

Notebook and pencil. That is to say: the essentials to carry in your handbag at all times, even when it comes to jotting down in a quick sketch the style of the outgoing female students of a Milanese high school, because fashion (life) is not only done on the catwalks, but also (and especially) off them.

Experience, imagination, inspiration. The basis of any pattern, the basis of any design. And, for inspiration, there is no shortage of subscription magazines that pass from hand to hand and that the employees of Gallia e Peter study in their every image: they leaf through them carefully, make notes in their notebooks, think about them for days on end, discuss them among themselves. Among the most beloved is Chapeaux, a Swiss magazine, published by Zurich-based Edtions Th. Weder.

One of the pioneers of modern design, William Morris (1834-1896), had it perfectly figured out. Flowers, fruits, and natural elements offered his designs unrivaled motifs, textures, and patterns. The most modern, the most classic, the most apt.

Forms in wood and forms in esparto. Two schools of life, two schools of thought.

Spring 1937. Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, the woman who-among other things-invented the color Rosa Shocking (otherwise known as Rosa Schiapparelli), again caused a scandal: on the white organza dress designed for her by Salvador Dali and worn by Wallis Simpson she decided to have... a lobster inserted.

Vanity, opulence, beauty. Feathers have always been synonymous with fashion.

Fashion and surrealism. If, as André Breton invited us to do, we indulge in automatic writing, allowing our hand to move on its own by photographing the thought that is in our head, here they are, right in front of us: fashion and surrealism, indeed.

Made of silk tulle, organza, chiffon, georgette. Fastened on the bride's head with pearls, hairpins or gold threads. Handed down from mother to daughter, from generation to generation, from hand to hand. If we stop to think, the veil is the object that, for centuries and more than any other, has materially connected women to their ave.