Rara Avis: when fashion takes wings

Rare Avis. Fashion in flight at the Farnesian Aviaries: if you are in Rome between 24 April and 21 July, mark this appointment in your diary.

Inside the Farnesian aviary on the Palatine, jewel of Renaissance and Baroque Rome, set in the Farnesian Gardens of the Palatine, the first botanical garden in the world, with the curatorship of Sofia Gnoli and the organization and promotion of the Colosseum archaeological park, you will find, in fact, the exhibition with clothes and accessories couture from the archives of the most famous fashion houses in the world, all united by a “light” common thread which in our opinion would have sent Carrie Bradshaw into orbit who, from the bird hat accompanying the legendary wedding dress by Vivienne Westwood, to the Pigeon Clutch Bag by JW Anderson, the fashion & birds mix he always appreciated it.

«Just like two Wunderkammers, the rooms of wonders, which between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries housed natural and artificial rarities – adds Sofia Gnoli, curator of the exhibition – the Aviaries will welcome visionary clothes and accessories born from the ideas of international designers. We would like to make visitors live an experience of amazement, as if they were immersed in a small astonishing cosmos, in which there is a correspondence between man and animal, to look further afield, at the relationship itself with nature”.

Always suspended between sacred, profane and earthly, in fact, the world of birds enriches the fashion panorama with a touch of delicate surrealism. Feathers and birds find a common thread starting from Queen Marie Antoinette, playfully nicknamed “Feather Head” by her brother Joseph precisely because it was she who launched the trend of very high hairstyles teeming with stuffed birds and small cages in the eighteenth century, created by Léonard, his personal hairdresser. A love of style for the winged kingdom that continues to this day, expressed in all the creations, including garments and accessories plumage of great designers.

A bag, a queen, and birds

Two colorful budgies are the closure of the all-gold clutch worn by Queen Maxima of Holland on her tour of the Caribbean. A clutch bag that is already a candidate as the funniest royal bag of 2023

Immersed in an idyllic landscape, sounds and noises of nature, you will be enchanted by the majestic white swan dress, a foam of tulle completed by white wings created by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior from the Cruise 2022 collection, inspired by a costume worn by Marlene Dietrich at a masquerade ball in 1935.

The tulle swan dress designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior Cruise 2022. Credit: Frédérique Dumoulin-Bonnet / JAVA. Courtesy of Dior Héritage collection.

It will make us dream the black swan dresswhich brings to mind Odile's Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, by Alexander McQueen, the fashion ornithologist, for Givenchy, part of the Autumn-/Winter 1997 Haute Couture.

Alexander McQueen for Givenchy Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 1997. Credit: © GIVENCHY. Photo by Bruno Pellerin

Flying high, it must be said, is also the organza corset dress, entirely embroidered with rooster and pheasant feathers, from the Florence 2020 Alta Moda Collection by Dolce&Gabbana.

Dolce&Gabbana Alta Moda Florence 2020. Courtesy of Dolce&Gabbana

Onphrame

And then the long black dress, garnished on the back with a cascade of kaleidoscopic feathers, a hybrid between a bird of paradise and a butterfly, branded Thierry Mugler of Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 1997. A splendid creation evoking astonishing metamorphoses: a personal flight of fancy by the designer, who as a child wanted to escape from reality by dreaming of creating a world tailored to his needs.

Thierry Mugler Haute Couture Spring/Summer 1997. Photo by Patrice Stable. Courtesy of Mugler

And, again, the golden micro-dress, in metal mesh and enormous ostrich feather wings designed by Donatella Versace especially for Katy Perry and showed off her on the red carpet of the MET Gala in 2018.

Atelier Versace by Donatella Versace for Katy Perry, Met Gala, New York, 2018. Courtesy of Versace

The dress also deserves a special place Victory of the hummingbird, designed specifically for the exhibition Rare Avis from Tiziano Guardini, made with Ahimsa silk feathers, non-violent silk, and embroidered with feathers of the same material which, through manual soleil pleating, give the dress the three-dimensionality and illusory trompe l'oeil effect of the animal. Furthermore, the entire dress is covered in thin gold leaves which transform it into a shining armour.

The Victory of the Hummingbird, site specific creation by Tiziano Guardini. Photo by Davide Gallizio

DAVIDE GALLIZIO

A section is then dedicated to the “avian” accessories of Anna Piaggi and from his personal collection, including a cage bag with canaries and hats by Schiaparelli and Philip Treacy.

The layout of the service More feathers from the Double Pages of Anna Piaggi, Vogue Italia, July 1995

An exhibition, in short, which, in a continuous reference between the animal and human worlds, really gives you wings!