Italian Fashion Highlights New Art Museum Exhibit

A new exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art explores the historical inspirations that have fueled and continue to influence Italian fashion.

Through the majestic creations of more than 100 modern and contemporary Italian fashions and accessories in dialogue with Italian fine, decorative, and textile arts from the 1400s to the early 1600s, “Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses” examines the art historical inspirations that fuel recent creative Italian lexicon.

More than 500 years ago, families — or “houses” — who ruled the states across the Italian peninsula, such as the Medici of Florence and the Sforza of Milan, used fashion as a form of power and influence, from dictating fashionable styles that were immortalized through painted portraits to controlling textile production as a form of currency. Conversely, since the turn of the 1900s, rising Italian fashion companies, also called “houses,” have been founded by prolific individuals and families who dominate global style with unmatched design craftsmanship, quality fabrics, and enthralling aesthetics. From Versace and Valentino to Ferragamo and Capucci, these houses have interpreted Italian early modern–period aesthetics to develop fresh perspectives throughout the fashion landscape. This exhibition illustrates how fashion, in all of its change, is a continuous thread that uncovers history’s complexities as it materializes contemporary beauty.

For ticket information and other details, go to clevelandart.org/home