Como Silk Museum dedicates an exhibition to fashion designer Lorenzo Riva

The Como Silk Museum hosts, from October 29, 2019 to March 31, 2020, the exhibition ll maestro è nell’anima. Lorenzo Riva - Fifty Years of High Fashion, the first solo exhibition dedicated to fashion designer Lorenzo Riva (Monza, 1938), curated by Paolo Aquilini.

Famous worldwide for having dressed the most prestigious brides of the international jet set, Riva is also a master in ready-to-wear, haute couture dresses and sensual evening gowns. The Silk Museum’s exhibition celebrates 50 years of activity by displaying dresses, sketches, international press reviews and for the first time highlights the eclectic genius of the Monza designer through his little-known but excellent collaborations. Underlying the exhibition is an extensive and lengthy cataloging of the designer’s archive, consisting of dresses, accessories, photographs, and sketches collected over the years: all elements in the exhibition that collect and express a tribute to her multifaceted activity, which also touches on various collaborations with the world of cinema: Monicelli ’s I panni sporchi (1999), Bracco ’s Il tempo delle mimose (2013) and Tornatore ’s La migliore offerta ( 2015) are the titles of some of the films in which Riva dresses actresses with his extraordinary garments. Riva has also dressed movie stars: Isabella Rossellini, Penelope Cruz, Jerry Hall, Chiara Mastroianni just to name a few.

An active frequenter of Milanese culture between the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, Riva boasts numerous collaborations with great contemporary artists who were protagonists of Italy’s Second Postwar period: the most prestigious, which will be found in the exhibition, is the one with Mimmo Rotella; some of his clothes are a direct reworking of famous paintings by the author of the world’s most famous décollages. Riva’s artistic production from the 1960s to the present is a temporal overview of changing genres and epochs, and the exhibition layout will focus precisely on this: tracing in an accomplished sense the historical shift in taste and style, the change in the aesthetic taste of fashion and the consequent stylistic evolution.

“The title ’the Master is in the soul’ is a wish: what Riva, master of contemporary fashion, inside the soul forever will remain, as Paolo Conte would say,” comments Paolo Aquilini, curator of the exhibition. Bianca Passera, president of the Como Silk Museum, recounts the genesis of the creation of this tribute to the famous designer: “The opportunity to build this exhibition came from the donation the museum received of a magnificent dress created by Lorenzo Riva on the occasion of the presentation of last fall’s edition of Tess, the magazine dedicated to fashion in the world and creativity in Como. An emerald green sartorial dress, of a wonderful new-generation technical silk from Tessitura Imperiali-a beautiful creation that Lorenzo Riva made and donated to us. If we add the strong connection with Como that Lorenzo has always had-here he chooses his fabrics, here he has drawn much of his inspiration, and here he comes for moments of relaxation-everything seemed perfect for us to celebrate his international fame in the round: both as a designer of bridal gowns and stars, and his connection with art and, finally, with our territory.”

The bright green couture coat with a jewel clasp, a sartorial creation with which the designer departed from his classic style to experiment with the innovation of a raw, stiff silk produced by an indigenous weaving mill, is on display at the exhibition, along with dresses and accessories, with a wide range of sketches and photographs that testify to his long career.

The exhibition will remain open until March 31, 2020.

For all information you can visit the Museum’s official website.

Source: release

Como Silk Museum dedicates an exhibition to fashion designer Lorenzo Riva

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