An exhibition on fashion in twentieth-century Italian cinema in Alexandria

Alessandria and Palazzo Cuttica open their doors to the exhibition Un set alla moda. A Century of Italian Cinema Between Photographs and Costumes curated by Domenico De Gaetano director of the National Cinema Museum in Turin.

The exhibition, scheduled from April 15 to June 30, recounts the intertwining of Italian cinema and fashion. Seventeen costumes and seventy set photographs taken by the “photographer of the divas” Angelo Frontoni (Rome, 1929 - 2002) make up an exhibition itinerary that is meant to be a journey backwards that starts from the silent cinema of the early 20th century, when Turin was Italy’s Hollywood and the directors themselves supervised the costumes, and then arrives at sound cinema and the’golden age of Cinecittà, of the auteur films of Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini and of Italian-style comedy, from Dino Risi to Roberto Benigni.

The set photos ferry the visitor inside the set, discovering the work behind a clapperboard, the accessories and details that helped create the fortune of, for example, the colossal Cabiria in the 1910s, as well as, in more recent times, the glamour of timeless divas such as Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren and Silvana Mangano.

The dresses on display tell the story of Italian cinema, the attention to detail and the creativity of costume designers who have now entered the Pantheon of international cinema: from Pietro Tosi to Marcel Escoffier, from Danilo Donati to Maurizio Chiari, from Nicoletta Ercole to Aldo Buti. Also in the spotlight are the two prestigious tailors Devalle and Annamode, bearing witness to two places, once again between Turin and Rome, where sketches took shape, turning into unique garments and where - then as now - the craft was learned and handed down.

The layout of the exhibition includes the display of 17 authentic costumes and props from the 1900-1920 period, related to the silent film epic and from Turin’s Sartoria Teatrale Devalle. For sound cinema, on the other hand, there will be elegant and precious gowns worn by great divas of the golden age of Italian cinema in collaboration with Sartoria Annamode of Rome, which, since the 1950s, has been passionately making clothes that have made Italian costume designers famous throughout the world. The exhibition could not fail to include a tribute dedicated to the sartorial creativity of those years that characterized our cinema and is still able to create undoubted visual fascinations. The films from which the clothes come are: Cabiria (1914), Il ponte dei sospiri (1921), La congiura di San Marco (1924), Le notti bianche (1957), La notte brava (1959), Adua e le compagne (1960), Operazione San Gennaro (1966), Le streghe (1967), La storia di Piera (1983), Il piccolo diavolo (1988) and La seconda moglie (1998).

The first part consists of a selection of strikingly scenic images: the stills from silent films such as Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, Spartacus, Salambò and, of course, Cabiria, Giovanni Pastrone ’s famous kolossal shot in Turin. These are images in which the costumes and impressive sets restore the spectacular dimension and productive commitment of Torino’s silent films. The itinerary then continues with a selection of working photos that portray some of the protagonists of the golden age of extraordinary Italian cinema between the 1950s and the 1990s. These images show the incredible production machine of cinema, its creative evolution, revealing previously unseen aspects of life on the set, as well as offering curious details about the films and their protagonists in whom so many audiences have recognized themselves for years.

There are four sections in the exhibition. The first is Il cinema muto: impressive sets and striking costumes, with great attention to detail and an almost baroque taste are some of the ingredients of Italian silent films. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Turin was the nerve and production center of Italian cinema, a hothouse of international successes, such as Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (1908), Spartacus (1913) and, of course, Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914), the first colossal in the history of cinema-with captions written by Gabriele D’Annunzio and special effects that were cutting-edge for the time-that toured the world’s screens. It is said that Pastrone himself had a keen eye for costumes, which he worked on together with set designer Camillo Innocenti and as many as 18 designers, even overseeing their creation. On display, alongside scenes from the films and stage pictures, which restore the spectacular dimension and impressive sets of early cinema, are the costume of Massinissa, one of the terrible characters in Cabiria, consisting of a leather breastplate with metal scales with friezes and complemented by a helmet, bearing friezes and a black horse-like tail, as well as the moleskin breastplate with studs, cloak and skins of the conqueror Hannibal. The costumes, kept by Devalle tailoring, evoke the director’s almost maniacal attention to detail, committed to recreating “a magnificent and mesmerizing whole,” as Martin Scorsese called the film Cabiria.

The second section is entitled Devalle in Turin: at the beginning of the 20th century, a number of tailors operated in Turin, suppliers of costumes for city theaters and theater companies. One of the most active was certainly Giovanni Devalle who, in addition to his work as a tailor and costume designer, was also an actor. Before the war he founded a partnership with his colleague and friend Piero Coris. Their possession of a good quantity of costumes facilitated them in being cast in the Turin theaters. After the war they take over the management of the little Silvio Pellico theater at 16 Via delle Rosine. In 1925 costumes and props from Turin production companies such as ltala, Ambrosio and Pasquali, by then merged into theUCI(Unione Cinematografica Italiana), are put up for sale. Remarkable material is found, purchased and brought to Via delle Rosine that had been used to shoot such blockbuster films as the masterpiece Cabiria and other successes-The Bridge of Sighs, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Conspiracy of St. Mark’s. That of Giovanni Devalle and Piero Coris is an operation of great cultural depth and preservation of the memory of Torino cinema of the silent period. While passionately following his father’s business, young Roberto decided to move to Milan and gain a profitable experience in the tailoring department of La Scala theater. Having inherited from his father the tailoring business, now on Via degli Artisti, Roberto Devalle consolidated a strong impetus to the activity also thanks to the acquisition of material from the prestigious Casa d’Arte Caramba in Rome, from Piedmont’s Luigi Sapelli, aka Caramba. The tailor’s shop, since the 1950s, has collaborated with the largest and most prestigious Italian Stable Theaters and with the most famous costume designers, devoting itself to the scrupulous research of materials and the study of fabrics. He collaborates with Rai, Mediaset, Swiss Italian Television. Cinema and advertising also see him engaged, with his son Andrea, in collaboration with leading directors and production companies.

The third section is The Sound Cinema, which unravels between shots on sets signed by Angelo Frontoni, “the photographer of the divas,” and some iconic dresses worn by actresses of the caliber of Silvana Mangano and Senta Berger as evidenced by the film sequences on the monitors. Protagonists are some of the masters of costume, with a leading role in Italian cinema and on the international scene. In the spotlight is the artistic partnership between Luchino Visconti and Academy Award-winning costume designer Piero Tosi, symbolized by the dress worn by Maria Schell in The White Nights (1957). Also signed by Tosi are the gowns on display, worn by Silvana Mangano in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s episode La terra vista dalla luna and by Clara Calamai and Véronique Vendell in Luchino Visconti’s episode La strega bruciata viva, as part of the ensemble film Le streghe (1967). Marcel Escoffier, master of period settings, is present with a treat: a contemporary dress, almost an exception in his career, that he made for Mauro Bolognini’s La notte brava (1959). Another Oscar winner, in 1969 for Zeffirelli ’s Romeo and Juliet and in 1977 for Fellini’s Il Casanova, is Danilo Donati represented by the suit he sewed for Emmanuelle Riva in Antonio Pietrangeli’s Adua e le compagne (1960). Let’s stay in the 1960s with the green dress of the sexy thief Senta Berger in Dino Risi’s Operazione San Gennaro (1966), which came out of the pencil of Maurizio Chiari, who was also a set designer. Instead, from fashion comes Nicoletta Ercole, Marco Ferreri’s historic costume designer, who dressed Isabelle Huppert in La storia di Piera (1983). Closing the selection of costumes, all made by the Annamode atelier, is Aldo Buti, a student of Tosi. On display are his works for Roberto Benigni’s The Little Devil (1988).

Closing with Annamode in Rome: founded back in 1946 in Rome’s Via Borgognona as a boutique with a small workshop on the initiative of Anna Allegri-the firm soon built up a good clientele thanks in part to the all-Tuscan friendliness of the owner, joined later by her sister Maria Teresa. In the euphoric climate of the recovery, Annamode was contributing to the flourishing of entertainment and fashion starting with Neorealism, to what was soon to be the great season of Italian cinema. After the modern dress films of the early days, the tailor’s shop gradually devoted more and more space and interest to costume productions. The technical skill of the theatrical relationship was perfected more and more as well as the search for historical fidelity; all this also thanks to the advice and assistance of top costume designers. Through costuming, Annamode now represents seventy years of the history of entertainment and is established as one of the most valuable theatrical and film tailors even in the international arena. Annamode continuously invests in research and development to guarantee costume designers, producers and directors, the highest quality. The new production process and the innovative online catalog “eCostumes” combine the most traditional tailoring techniques with the most advanced technologies. Today led by Simone Bessi, Marina Ridofli and Fausto Pallottini, it is a world-famous industry that has been able to recreate twenty centuries of history with talent and skill.

For all information, you can visit Visit Alessandria.

An exhibition on fashion in twentieth-century Italian cinema in Alexandria

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