My family is eagerly anticipating next month's trip to Italy (August 2018). (Yes. We know it'll be hot. We got cheap plane tickets.) One of my daughters will be celebrating her 17th birthday when we're in Florence. She is a history and costume/fashion buff who's keen on visiting the Pitti Palace's Museum of Fashion and Costume. We're pretty independent travelers (read: we don't typically hire guides or go on guided tours) but I'm interested in knowing if we might get more out of THIS visit if we had some "insiders" information. I've found various tours, but none are specifically dedicated to that particular museum. I'm curious if others have any information to share.
Posted by
Firenze, Italy
1532 posts
Well, there is an online catalogue of exhibits in the website you are quoting. There is some rotation of exhibits so if you visit the museum every few years you will find it a little different. The most spectacular pieces are those literally digged out of tombs of reigning people and painstakingly stitched together.
I guess your daughter could be interested in Museo Ferragamo as well.
Posted by
Western Canada
3123 posts
The Ferragamo Shoe Museum is definitely worth a visit.
It is also beautifully air conditioned! (Which is the reason I visited it in the first place, but ended up really enjoying it for its contents.)
There is also the Gucci Museum in Florence; it's got lots of clothes from the design company's career dressing many famous people, not just bags and shoes.
Posted by
123 posts
Congrats on your upcoming trip to Italy, and outstanding to include costume/fashion sightseeing for your daughter! I too am a history and costume/fashion fan (history degrees do that to you!). Back in March, I visited the Museum of Fashion and Costume at Palazzo Pitti and had a great time. Currently, they have an exhibit called “Traces” that I absolutely loved. The pieces are all 20th and 21st century, and the thematic presentation in each gallery is quite the sartorial expression. The one thing that surprised me was that the museum only had a few historic costume pieces on display, and due to the fragile nature of the pieces, they were in a very dark room. Still very much worth seeing, but I wanted you to be aware that what you see in the online catalog is not what is on display in the museum.
To your question of do you need a guide for this part of the museum... I researched tours for this part of the museum for my trip this year, and likewise came up short. Wound up doing self-guided and had a lovely time on my own. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything by not being on a guided tour for this part of Palazzo Pitti. What WOULD be helpful with guided tour in PP is all the art galleries. Wow, tons of art and no information cards. It’s an amazing sensory overload that would be greatly helped to distill through a guide’s lens.
Agreed with the others that the Gucci and Ferragamo museums as additional fashion history museums worth checking out, especially Gucci with their recent renovation of the museum space. Also, take a mosey around the Oltrarno district as there are some designers who have shops in that area. Tiziana Alemanni is one of my favorite designers, and she has a shop very close to PP.
If you ARE looking for a private guide in Florence, let me know and I would be happy to DM you the contact information for the guide I work with on my trips to Florence. Her enthusiasm and wealth of knowledge blow me away every time, even after 4 tours!
Happy planning!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
15826 posts
Joanna has already given you excellent advice on the Pitti's fashion exhibit...and I'll completely agree with her on the "sensory overload" of the Palatine Galleries.
But aside from the MOFC gallery, if your daughter is keenly interested in period apparel, some fascinating examples can be found in paintings done during specific eras. The families who footed the bills for private chapels and whatnot were often painted into religious scenes wearing the clothing of the day, whereas attire for the Biblical figures was just a guess unless occasionally decked out in contemporary duds. A good example is the Sassetti Chapel in Florence's Santa Trinita? Not just the wealthy banker, Francesco Sassetti, and his family ended up in the fresco cycle but other 15th-century Florentine contemporaries as well and are said to have been painted from life as they really looked, down to hairstyles and shoes. Even the painter himself dabbled his likeness into one of the scenes!
So remind her to look beyond the surface for those details that can make YET another religion-themed painting (lots of those in Italy!) more interesting. :O)
Posted by
123 posts
Kathy's recommendation to "look beyond" for examples of fashions of the day hidden in plain sight is brilliantly spot on, and I agree completely! Seeing the wealthy Florentine families captured in these chapel frescoes is a unique way to connect history, fashion, and art, politics, and religion all into one experience. Definitely seek out the church chapels for snapshots of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. And thank you so much for the Sassetti Chapel recommendation, Kathy - that's tops on my list for the next visit to Florence!
Also, if your daughter happens to be on Instagram, I recommend following Art Garments (handle: artgarments). They break down paintings with significant and unique textile components for greater detail, and I am utterly fascinated by the skill that goes into each of the works. Reminds me of when I stared for 30 minutes at the Lippi paintings and the paintings of the Virtues in the Uffizi. There's also another textile-rich piece in the same gallery as the Virtues, and is very much worth checking out. Then, my favorite Artemisia Gentileschi painting of Judith and Holofernes is in the new Caravaggio Rooms - a must-see!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
15826 posts
Reminds me of when I stared for 30 minutes at the Lippi
paintings....in the Uffizi.
O Joanna! That wonderful filmy headdress on the Virgin in "Madonna and Child with Two Angels"!!!
Very glad you've got the Sassetti on your must-do list. LOL, allow plenty of time to stare intently! :O)
I've just run off to look up "Judith and Holofernes". Oooooh.
Posted by
123 posts
Yes! I was spellbound by that diaphanous headdress. 😍
That Artemisia painting is powerful, yet also not for the faint of heart. The first time I saw it was as part of an exhibit in Rome of Artemisia’s works alongside her male contemporaries. It was fascinating to see the different approaches that all the artists applied to the same themes. Even Artemisia contradicted herself with her multiple Judith and Holofernes commissions. You can really get a sense of where she was stylistically in her career, as well as her collaborations with the various patrons for each commisssion. My immediate reaction to the Artemisia painting in the Caravaggio rooms at the Uffizi was a double-take that Quentin Tarantino had gone back in time to influence the painting.
Thank you for jogging happy reflections of these art experiences!