Stylish accessories to tell the story of a century. Fashion between 1830 and 1930 is revealed in an exhibition – World – Arte.it

World – Fans decorated with ostrich feathers, European-made handbags from the 1920s, parasols of silk and ivory. Often associated with luxury and power, as well as objects linked to everyday life, fashion accessories have always helped define the status and social belonging of the men and women who wear them.
An exhibition scheduled from October 18 to February 22 at the Cantonal Art Gallery Giovanni Züst in Rancate / Mendrisio, in the Canton of Ticino, will review these everyday artifacts, often testifying to the taste and society of the time, as well as examples of artisanal quality.
Among the more than 200 objects on display, in addition to advertising posters, sales catalogues, fashion sketches and fashion magazines, there are approximately sixty paintings and sculptures from public and private collections, created by artists such as Giacomo Balla, Giovanni Boldini, Telemaco Signorini, Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Spartaco Vela and Filippo Franzoni.

The exhibition is an opportunity to delve deeper into the production and marketing of some of these artefacts. Thanks to the collaboration of the State Center for Dialectology and Ethnography and in particular the Onsernonese Museum of Loco, the project focuses on the making of straw hats, baskets and bags, a typical activity of Val Onsernone, which exported these products to the markets of Lombardy and Piedmont, but also to Germany and France.

Giovanni Boldini, Josephina Alvear de Errazuriz, ca. 1913, oil on canvas, private collection, courtesy of METS percorsi d’arte, Novara © METS Percorsi d’Arte

A historical part of the route also aims to bring to life, through photographs, tools and original documentation, the atmosphere that prevailed in the production and trade of hats in the Ticino region. The public will also be able to follow an excursion dedicated to the most important fashion shops and department stores active during that period, especially in the Lugano scene.
The exhibition concludes with the figure of the Lugano designer Elsa Barberis, whose clothes, with their simplified and modern shapes, mark the beginning of a new fashion season from the 1940s and herald a new way of designing and experiencing accessories.