Tuesday, January 28, 2014

INTO MISSONI… the "La Moda: The Glamour of Italian Fashion" exhibition at the V&A celebrates Italy's rich contribution to modern fashion

The "La Moda: The Glamour of Italian Fashion" exhibition, opening on April 5th at the Victoria&Albert museum in London and ending on July 27th, explores Italian fashion and its evolution into the monumental craft industry it is today. It focused on the techniques, materials and expertise in the area of luxurious couture, innovative ready-to-wear and accessories.This extraordinary costume show examines Italy's rich contribution to modern fashion, and will feature around a hundred ensembles from the V&A's collections and international lenders, including some unique archive material of the traditional fashion house Missoni. Some memorable pieces will be on show in this occasion, highlighting Missoni's influence in the creation on the Italian style, with drawings by the late artist Antonio Lopez that will be also included in the exhibition catalog. Antonio Lopez electrified the fashion world in the seventies and eighties through his amazing fashion illustrations, published in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Interview, and defined the style of a whole generation of fashion connoisseurs. He usually created out of ­his apartment on Boulevard St.-Germain, a large white modern space loaned to him by his friend Karl Lagerfeld, where exhilarating people and various trendsetters were coming and going. For the illustrations of the FW 1983 ad campaign commissioned by Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, which featured a fierce bowman, Antonio found inspiration in the placid countryside around Sumirago, where he had found a remote archery club close to the Missoni factory. Missoni treasures this unique testimony of time and space, created by an exceptional artist who painted with many colors and went far beyond reality in his drawings.