ABITO
Promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with curatorship by Palomba Serafini Associati, ABITO is a cultural project that explores the relationship between fashion and design, presenting them as complementary expressions of Italian design culture, capable of narrating the evolution of society and lifestyles.
Staged in Milan, at Fiera Milano Rho during the Salone del Mobile, the exhibition presents a chronological narrative in which historical garments from the fashion archive of the Quinto Tinarelli Collection enter into dialogue with icons of Italian design and a selection of Made in Italy furnishings and objects. Among them, Due Più and Lokum tell two different moments in the history of Acerbis: the former, designed in the 1970s and still surprisingly contemporary today; the latter, a more recent expression of the collection, reflects the continuity of a design research that moves across different eras and languages.
The figure of the woman is the core of the exhibition path and becomes a metaphor for the transformations of society. Women’s clothes, in fact, narrate the evolution of her role over time, while design interprets new behaviours, new needs and new ways of inhabiting, confirming the ability of Italian design culture to read its time and translate it into objects destined to endure.
The meaning of the project is enclosed in its very title, ABITO: a word that refers, on the one hand, to the element that accompanies the body and interprets social changes; on the other, to the verb abitare — to inhabit — understood as the way of occupying, transforming and experiencing space. The exhibition represents the first stage of an itinerant journey that will continue abroad, hosted by Embassies, Consulates and Italian Cultural Institutes, with the aim of disseminating and promoting the excellence of Made in Italy around the world.
Photo by Enrico Costantini