Fashioning Cinema.
Women and Style at the Venice Film Festival

Fashioning Cinema. Women and Style at the Venice Film Festival is an exhibition that stages the correspondences between the costumes of major films shot in the lagoon city, the contemporary fashion inspired by those films and their atmospheres, and the precious garments preserved in the museum’s collections. It is a journey in which the andriennes of Palazzo Mocenigo enter into dialogue with the mechanical doll’s dress designed by Danilo Donati for Federico Fellini’s Casanova, and with Karl Lagerfeld and Fendi’s exquisite reinterpretation created for a historic ball at Palazzo Corsini; a journey where the delicate evening gowns crafted by Piero Tosi for Silvana Mangano in Death in Venice reveal their declared inspiration in today’s most dreamlike designer creations. Nine films correspond to as many female archetypes and historical periods, from Mambo and Summertime to Senso, Anonimo Veneziano, Death in Venice, Casanova, The Talented Mr Ripley, The Wings of the Dove, and The Tourist.

This original overview also celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Venice Film Festival, dedicating a significant section to the great red-carpet gowns of the last fifty years and to the actresses who wore them – from Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and Valentina Cortese to Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Alba Rohrwacher, Tilda Swinton and Madonna.