Abcdaire

A for Anni d’oro (the 1950s), the golden years of the Italian fashion and hats. As in fairy tales, the decade opens with a ball, orchestrated in 1951 by Giovanni Battista Giorgini at his house in Florence, Villa Torregiani, the perfect setting of dreams which 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. They are at the base of any model and any design. For the inspiration the magazines on subscription pass on to one person to the other and the employees of Gallia e Peter study every pictures: they skim through them and take notes on their note books, they think it over for days and discuss about them together. Among the lovest is Chapeaux, a Swiss magazine, published by Th.Weder from Zurich.

One of the pioneers of modern design, William Morris (1834-1896), had perfectly understood this. Flowers, fruits, natural elements offered unrivaled motifs, textures and patterns to his drawings. The most modern, the most classic, the most appropriate.

Wooden shapes and esparto shape. Two schools of life, two schools of thought.

Spring 1937. The designer Elsa Schiaparelli, the woman who - among other things - invented the color Shocking Pink (otherwise called Rosa Schiapparelli), causes scandal again: on the white organza dress designed for her by Salvador Dalì and worn by Wallis Simpson decides 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 let ourselves go to automatic writing, allowing our hand to move on its own, photographing the thoughts that go through our heads, here they are, right in front of us: fashion and surrealism, in fact.

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 ancestors.