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Oct. 10 - Oct. 17, 2004 |
Giorgio Armani recognized as National Treasure
Rome dedicates a retrospective exhibition to Italian fashion master in celebration of 25 years in the business
By Carmela Piccione
Originally Published: 2004-05-23
Giorgio Armani triumphs in Rome, at the Diocletian Baths, with a retrospective exhibition. Over 500 suits and dresses are on display, until August 1, in one of the city's most elaborate places, amidst ancient domes, capitols, and Roman statues.
The May 5 official opening of this event, sponsored by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Electa, saw an assembly of politicians, entrepreneurs, actors, all sporting King Giorgio's unmistakable Italian style. Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Virna Lisi, Chiara Muti, Mr. and Mrs. Massimiliano Fuksas, Roma AS striker Francesco Totti and his fiancée Illary, Ornella Muti, Rome mayor Walter Veltroni escorting Quincy Jones, movie director Silvio Muccino, Lucrezia Lante della Rovere, Giovannino Malagò, Lucio Dalla, Nicoletta Romanoff, were the ideal interpreters of a visionary scenery designed by a wizard of contemporary theatre, Robert Wilson.
Each hall displays a style, an epoch, a triumph of excellence, class, rigour, minimalism. Black and white, embroideries, precious fabrics, slate-coloured suits, tuxedos, effects of light and transparence, ethnic shades, exoticism... The suits worn by celebrities, as immortalized in giant posters with Leonardo Di Caprio, Martin Scorsese, Lady Helen Taylor, niece of Queen Elizabeth, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mira Sorvino, Julia Roberts, Kevin Costner, John Travolta, Raul Bova.
"King Giorgio? No thanks, you can call me Emperor...," joked the world-famous designer from Milan, confessing his love for Rome. "It belongs to us all, to the whole world. When in Rome, I feel at home..."
The retrospective, curated by Germano Celant, arrived in Rome following an international tour that paraded the great master's creations in New York, Bilbao, Berlin, and London, and that will bring them to Tokyo and Los Angeles.
"Every show was different from the preceding one," admitted Armani, "depending on the place, the atmosphere, the smells of the city. Rome? It allows me some strange transgressions, and if I think of some dresses sewn like peplos, I can see that ancient Rome influenced me, although subconsciously." As Bob Wilson remarked, "the exhibition is an uninterrupted dialogue between the present and the past, through experiments, avant-garde, creativity. Look at those statues," he pointed. "Handless, faceless, mysterious. They resemble dummies, dressed by the genius and the art of great designers."
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