Synonymous with footwear, Ferragamo became notable for silk accessories after Fulvia, one of Salvatore Ferragamo's daughters, launched the first collection in the early 1970s.
Running until April 2022, an exhibition titled "Silk" traces how the fabric became a staple for the Italian fashion house.
Comprising nine sections, the exhibition is physically held at Museo Salvatore Ferragamo in Florence. However, an exclusive virtual tour available in both Italian and English, reachable from all over the world, takes visitors inside the museum.
The exhibition begins with a dialogue between art and fashion in the first section. Through their installation, Were Creatures Born Celestial?, Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu conceptually exemplify how the Silk Road has long been a fertile ground for encounters and exchanges between East and West.
Giada silk twill scarf from the spring/summer 1993 collection. (Photos: Ferragamo)
Section 2 depicts Fulvia's fascination of China at a boarding school at Villa del Poggio Imperiale in Florence. Living in the dorms, known as the Chinese quarters, cultivated her interest in silk and Oriental decorative motifs.
The exhibition then aims to illustrate, through the maison's archive, the long creative process behind the silk prints, in particular scarves.
Countless sources of inspiration behind the subjects printed on these scarves and ties are portrayed in Section 3. The initial moodboards for each collection are bound in red albums, whose content inspired in-house designers and silk producers in Como.
References in the albums were cross-checked and matched against the designs of scarves that went into production. The most fascinating subjects to populate these prints are birds, such as ducks, herons, pheasants, penguins, and parrots, which reflect Fulvia's passion for avifauna.
Section 4 explores her floral designs, including a cypher of a patchwork of flowers and leaves used to assemble multiple decorative motifs.
Shoes silk twill scarf from the spring/summer 1989 collection.
This is referenced in a short film, Look Back Anouk, by Rocco Gurrieri and Irene Montini screened in the following section. The directors drew inspiration from the scarves created by Fulvia as well as from animated films by Czechoslovakian director Jir ̌í Trnka, whose patchwork flower puppets suggested the figurative style of early Ferragamo prints.
Identifiable and traceable to precise taxonomic categories, numerous animal species come to life on Ferragamo scarves displayed in Section 6.
Aironi crepe de chine scarf from the autumn/winter 1981/82 collection.
The next section, "Young Talents On The Silk Road", features a multimedia installation that presents interpretations of the theme through graphics by five students. Their designs are artistically linked to four new Ferragamo fragrances, inspired by the company's history of silk print.
Illustrated in Section 8, the footwear heritage inspired a new line in the late 1980s. The first shoe-themed scarf was aptly called Shoes, which was followed up by Toes, Bacheca and Poster.
The last section portrays how the success of Ferragamo's prints led to transferring the motifs from the scarves to ready-to-wear, from the 1970s. In the 2000s, floral prints have adorned dresses and pants with a romantic, Oriental-inflected style that recalls Fulvia's fascination of China.
Visit the exhibition at museo.ferragamo.com.
