Roberto Capucci's sculpture-creations invade the Labirinto della Masone

From October 8, 2022 to January 8, 2023, Franco Maria Ricci ’s Labirinto della Masone in Fontanellato hosts the exhibition Roberto Capucci. Silky Armor, curated by Roberto Capucci Foundation, Franco Maria Ricci Foundation with the collaboration of Sylvia Ferino.

In 1993, Franco Maria Ricci’s publishing house dedicated a volume of the Luxe, calme et volupté series to fashion maestro Roberto Capucci, a series of volumes that explored the world of fashion through the works of the most significant designers of the 20th century.

The exhibition in the Labirinto della Masone aims to celebrate his career from different aspects, placing his creations, often resembling sculptures, side by side with works of art from Franco Maria Ricci’s collection.

Born in Rome in 1930, Capucci opened his first atelier in 1950 on Via Sistina and from a very young age he was also known abroad, welcomed with enthusiasm (especially by French critics) and considered an absolute protagonist in the history of Italian fashion. In the course of his career, his notoriety was such that he dressed female icons such as Marylin Monroe, Gloria Swanson, Jacqueline Kennedy, Elsa Martinelli, Irene Brin, Rita Levi Montalcini, and Silvana Mangano, for whom Capucci, strongly desired by Pierpaolo Pasolini, designed the clothes for the film Teorema.

Roberto Capucci’s clothes are recognizable: architectural structures where color is the protagonist in creations in which he seems to sculpt matter.

“Roberto Capucci is a transformer, he is a Houdini, he is a magician, an inventor, but above all he is a gardener, the prince of nature,” is how designer Antonio Marras speaks of him. “He does not design clothes, he shapes them, as if they were precious porcelain. Roberto Capucci is a mathematician and a botanist, he is an aerospace engineer and Saint-Exupéry’s little prince who asks to design a sheep to eat the baobab. Roberto Capucci explores and narrates a world of animated clothes. A world made of myths that have become living matter, a universe in constant transformation, like a living and mutant nature.”

The main source of suggestion of his work is nature, inspired by the descriptions in Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, where Daphne and other characters are transformed into trees or animals: in Capucci’s clothes, these myths can be found, the textile material interprets them into real sculptures dominated by fabric and colors to create ’silky armors’ that seem to be regardless of the shape of the body. In particular, the evening gowns are ageless creations where he himself imposes his unmistakable mark on time, in a continuous work of formal and chromatic research that does not hesitate to resort to the most diverse materials, from the most exclusive silks to the simplest natural products such as raffia or straw, in order to continually seek new expressive possibilities of beauty.

This gave rise to the memorable creations of the 1980s, such as Butterflies and Circles, reminiscent of shapes from the animal world, or Variations in Green and Color, in which color takes center stage in innovative and bold color combinations.

Also on display will be some preparatory sketches, through which it is possible to understand the creative process behind Capucci’s work.

“Whoever wears one of Capucci’s creations immediately becomes the protagonist of a scene of which he himself is the director: a scene that resembles the triumphal processions and festivals staged in the Renaissance and Baroque ages in honor of famous princes,” is how Sylvia Ferino, curator of the exhibition, summarizes the complexity of the master’s work. “Capucci is more than a creator of fashion: he is a director, architect and perhaps even a playwright, since his clothes dictate in a certain way the ceremonial and etiquette of the court, thus giving shape to the event, just as they fix the different characters and roles of the women who wear them.”

A new volume for FMR editions dedicated to Roberto Capucci will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.

For info: https://www.labirintodifrancomariaricci.it/it/labirinto/homepage-labirinto/

Roberto Capucci's sculpture-creations invade the Labirinto della Masone

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