Florence remains one of Italy’s historic cities that has retained the splendor of its Renaissance past. An enchanting city that never ceases to amaze, with masterpieces of art that evoke its splendor and the role it played in the development of culture and art. The city, however, is not only history but also the history of fashion. Many brands were born and developed along the Arno River, and indeed it is in Florence that you can visit the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum and the Gucci Garden Archetypes.
Salvatore Ferragamo Museum
The museum was established in May 1995 at the initiative of the Ferragamo family with the desire to acquaint the public around the world with the artistic qualities of Salvatore Ferragamo and the role he played in the history not only of footwear but also of international fashion.
In this context, we talk about the vision of Wanda Ferragamo, Salvatore’s widow and at the head of the company since 1960, with her six children, and she decided not to close the company but rather to transform an artisanal women’s footwear workshop into a fashion house, where her children can give continuity to that furrow of innovation and creativity started by her husband Salvatore. In particular, it was Fiamma Ferragamo, the eldest of the siblings, who became the spokesperson within the family for this project, drawing on the technical expertise of historians and archivists.
Each year the Museum selects a different research theme that allows for a cross-cutting investigation of the Ferragamo world, combining it with other fields such as art, architecture, design, economic and social history, and philosophy. At this time – until April 2023 – the museum is hosting, in addition to the brand’s archives, “Women in Balance, 1955-1965,” which honors Wanda’s memory with an exhibition that examines the complex reality of women in Italy between the 1950s and 1960s, a period in which Wanda changed her life. The itinerary sketches the activities and choices of women of different ages, including in fields of work until then reserved almost exclusively for men.
Gucci Garden Archetypes
Inside the Gucci Garden in Florence comes the Garden of Archetypes, an immersive, multi-sensory space that explores Gucci’s campaigns of the past six years and Alessandro Michele’s creative manifesto. The new Gucci museum allows visitors to fully immerse themselves in the heart and vision of the brand. Archetypes, which correspond precisely to archetypes, want to represent Gucci’s advertising campaigns of the past six years that represent a unique and unrepeatable moment, the source and nourishment of the debate on issues of universal scope and creativity itself.
Several rooms are set up completely at opposite ends of the spectrum to reveal the facets of a creative director who has been able to range between art and music, between modern metropolises like Los Angeles and Tokyo and utopian worlds with enchanted gardens and intergalactic landscapes, where the boundary between past, present, and future, between history and mythology, constantly shifts in a journey of senses involving sight, hearing, and smell.
