Welcome to The Director’s Cut, an interactive column featuring fashion, beauty and career advice from RGNN Director and Founder, @isabelevabohrer.
Curate an exhibition, or organize any event for that matter, and include some mirrors. In today’s age of Instagram, you’re bound to get people taking selfies, sending them to friends and family and sharing them on social media. I’m the first always to be found guilty.
But this time, things were taken to the next level. Case in point: the “Gianni Versace: Frente al Espejo” exhibition at the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid. For those who don’t speak Spanish, that is, “Gianni Versace: In Front of the Mirror,” was the title of the exhibition. Many are the times that I have visited fashion exhibitions, only to be disappointed that the space allotted to the exhibit did not permit the dresses to be seen from all angles.
And thus, when I came across the novelty of this Versace exhibition, I was smitten. The curator, Jose Luis Diez Garde, who kindly received us when we visited to open Madrid Fashion Week, had affixed mirrors not only to the walls (yes, I rushed to take selfies) and moreover, to the floor under the dresses so that you could see the construction of the garments from underneath.
What an innovative way to approach the concept of the mirror. In fact, one could say that the exhibition was titled “Gianni Versace: In Front of the Mirror” because it was back in 1989, when Versace moved to Paris, that he (metaphorically) first looked himself in the mirror, reaffirming his identity as a designer and a person as a whole with the founding of Versace Atelier. It was in the nineties that Versace challenged the existing barriers in the art worlds, inspired by Picasso, Chagall and Warhol. The latter in fact was the sole inspiration behind Versace’s 1990 haute couture collection; to Versace, fashion far transcended an exhibition of dresses — it was a form of educating and modernizing society.
And as a matter of fact, there is much to be learned from this exhibition. All of it was made possible thanks to a generous donation of more than 180 pieces, 130 of them dresses, made to the National Museum of Decorative Arts back in 2001. (That was before the official inauguration of the Museo del Traje, Madrid’s Costume Museum, in 2004.) The donor: the Italian businesswoman and philanthropist María Cristina Croce, President of the Grupo Consorcio, a company dedicated to gourmet canned fish (anchoas de Santoña sound familiar? Seems far from haute couture but she loves them both!).
What a generous gift – her collection of haute couture dresses includes more than 20 Versace dresses, but primarily Valentino pieces (something special re: Valentino is in the works at the museum, but we can’t mention that just yet, whispered curator Diez!). My personal non-Versace favorite was this sparkly Chanel tweed ensemble.
María Cristina Croce was a personal friend of Gianni Versace and it is on more than one occasion that she would spot a dress on the runway and ask him to customize it for her. Take this black crochet mini dress, for example; on the runway, it was sleeveless, but for her, he added sleeves to match. Versace, though known for his passion for color, ever since he was a child preferred black, actually. Black, as a symbol of the free, modern woman without sexual tabus.
The medusa, too, isn’t missing as a symbol in the exhibition. As Versace himself affirmed, the medusa signifies education, a dangerous attraction. A time-old symbol; in fact, throughout the exhibition, the museum has pulled on its vast archive as a decorative arts institution and you’ll find the couture pieces juxtaposed with pieces including everything from ceramics to chandeliers.
Compared to the Manolo Blahnik exhibition the museum put on in 2017, which had lines around the block and was, quite literally a blockbuster exhibition occupying several floors, the Versace exhibit is comparatively small. But if you’re in Madrid and love couture, be it Versace specifically or in general, don’t miss this gem. No surprise the originally scheduled end date of October 6, 2024 has been extended until January 13, 2025. The mirrors (and Versace) won’t disappoint 😉.
Plan your visit
Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas.
- Calle de Montalbán 12. 28014 Madrid.
- Tuesday through Saturday: 9.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m., Sundays from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.
- Closed on Mondays.
- Note: because of the heat in the summer, some parts of the museum may be closed. It is recommended you visit early in the morning, or call the museum ahead of time to inquire about specific opening hours.
- Access to temporary exhibitions, including the Gianni Versace exhibition, is always free.
- “Gianni Versace: Frente al Espejo” will be on view until January 13, 2024.
Thank you to the National Museum of Decorative Arts for inviting us.
Questions or comments? Follow me on IG @isabelevabohrer or TikTok and say hi! See you soon!
