Forty Years of Costume-Making in Italian Cinema

Famed Sartoria Farani celebrated in unique Roma exhibition titled Tra I Vestimenti

A great exhibition in Rome is celebrating the long life of Sartoria Farani, over 40 years in business among cinema, theatre, music, ballet, and television. The trademark of this historic workshop, founded in 1962 in Rome, is its inventiveness, art, fantasy, and sophisticated craftsmanship. It's been a veritable forge of artists, wizards of painting, colour, and costumes; untiring creators, experimenters of unequalled art.
The exhibition displays over 200 dresses and suits, designed by Danilo Donati (three Oscars for his costumes for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet and Federico Fellini's The Clowns and Casanova), Roberto Capucci, Santuzza Calì, Ezio Frigerio and Franca Squarciapino, Maurizio Millenotti, Elisabetta Montaldo, Raimonda Gaetani, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Lele Luzzati, Zaira De Vincentiis, Alessandro Ciammarughi, Luigi Perego, Giusi Giustino, Alessandro Buti... Hundreds of products bear the signature of great masters. The list is endless. Unforgettable movies and theatrical productions directed by Visconti, Pasolini, Zeffirelli, Wertmuller, Damiani, Lynch, Cobelli, Scaparro, Olmi, Ronconi, Lavia, Albertazzi, Patroni Griffi, Squarzina.
These include, for instance, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, The Taming of the Shrew starring Richard Burton and Elisabeth Taylor, Oedipus Rex, Amarcord, Roger Vadim's 1967 Barbarella, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Ferdinando e Carolina, Profession of Arms. The exhibition, prepared by Simonetta Licastro Scardino, Maria Schiavone, Clara Tosi Pamphili, and Roberto Lucifero, is an exceptional gallery of art. The dummies mesh with movie images in a surreal, poetic atmosphere.
They tell the story of Italy, of a culture of sophisticated design and creativity founded on the cross-contamination of languages, materials, fabrics, objects, and 'shapes'. An example of this are the revolutionary 'inventions' of Danilo Donati. That great costume designer was not afraid of using poor materials such as straw, wood, shells (for Silvana Mangano's dress in Pasolini's Oedipus Rex), gauze, even pasta turned into gems or embroideries, hundreds of kilograms of candies for the mosaics in Fellini's Satyricon, mountains of chick peas for marvelously credible sculptures.
"His sketches," say his friends, "were always drawn against chiaroscuro backdrops, as if there were spotlights ready to flood them with light." Experimenting and total freedom were made possible by the sense and generosity of Piero Farani (born in 1922). In his workshop, now run by Luigi Piccolo, ideas were born, the magic of cinema and theatre was sculpted, costumes became fundamental elements of the artwork. Numerous testimonies (and images, of course) are included in the catalogue published by Electa. They allow us to get a glimpse, through memories and anecdotes, of the feverish moments when work was play, passion, rigour, and wonder. Cloths were cut, sewn, painted, changed, their essence violated.
Stefano Masi, in his introduction, writes, "Farani was a builder of dreams. Through the discovery of materials that went well beyond the traditional palette used by costume designers, he aspired to cross the border of the visible, and transform the external bark of the characters into a living painting related to the material framework of contemporary art."
Alongside the richness of the dresses on display, attentive visitors are struck by almost invisible details, signature touches. Unusual, original, singular materials decorating (or simply accompanying) a dress: burnished sequins, metal studs, leather details, cords, cloths 'doubled' with gauze and laces, pleated cotton (Farani had built ad hoc machinery for this), decorations in chenille, chainmail, leotards in elasticized rafia, pearls, velvet, gilded metal, paillettes, ostrich and peacock feathers, heavy hemp fabric, ropes, hot glue, putty, lacquered pasta, acetates, crystals, corks sculpted in visionary jewellery... Even old towels used by Alessandra Torella as headgear for Tosca and the Women, previously used by Danilo Donati in Sergio Citti's Roguish Stories.
Costumes are also art, passion, absolute devotion to the masters of the past. Roberto Capucci and Donati himself never hid their fascination for the great Italian painting of the past: Giotto, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, and more. The art of costume designing knows no borders, as costumes, Stefano Masi writes, "straddle the borders of painting, sculpture, performance," amidst suggestions, deliriums, fairytale shades, and sophisticated realism.
After the Roman stay, the Tra i Vestimenti exhibition will move to Brussels in autumn.

Publication Date: 2004-05-16
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