Palazzo Pitti inaugurates a three-year program dedicated to the culture of contemporary fashion with a through-the-lens view of Karl Lagerfeld’s photographic works.

The exhibition “KARL LAGERFELD – Visions of Fashion”, curated by Eric Pfrunder and Gerhard Steidl, opened yesterday, 14th June, in Florence at Palazzo Pitti, during Pitti Uomo 90.; It shows the designer’s photographic production and includes many unpublished pictures.

Exhibition "Karl Lagerferld - Visions of fashion" at Palazzo Pitti. Photo by Europeana Fashion. CC BY SA

The pathway starts from the grand staircase, Scalone del Moro, and continues through the rooms of the Galleria Palatina, the Sala Bianca and the two rooms of the Appartamenti degli Arazzi. The artworks are placed to the edges of the space, drawing a neon-enlighted path through the rooms of Palazzo Pitti and culminating in the Sala Bianca, where Italian fashion was first shown in 1951. For this room, the curators have decided to print the photos on lightweight paper, to make them flutter from the ceiling, recalling the ethereal movements of the models gliding on the runway.

Sunlight in Vermont. Chanel 2009. Exhibition "Karl Lagerferld - Visions of fashion" at Palazzo Pitti. Photo by Europeana Fashion. CC BY SA

The exhibit is a special anthology celebrating Karl Lagerfeld’s diverse and elegant approach to photography. It unveils images from editorials published in the world’s most widespread fashion magazines, such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Numéro and V Magazine, as well as other original projects, as the ones inspired by classical mythology.

Lesson of elegance. Chanel 2013. Sala di Giove. Exhibition "Karl Lagerferld - Visions of fashion" at Palazzo Pitti. Photo by Europeana Fashion. CC BY SA

Karl Lagerfeld, fashion designer, photographer, publisher, designer, as well as film director, has begun his photographic production creating the visuals for his fashion shows and the ads for his collections; then his photography ventured also into other territories. At his studio in Rue de Lille, one of the last still shaped as the iconic ones of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, he has been capturing all the world’s most well-known personalities onto a white paper cyclorama, contributing greatly to contemporary visual culture. His capacity to observe and perceive the world with a very peculiar eye forms a continuum with his work as fashion designer, and fits perfectly within his creative process.

Sala Bianca. Exhibition "Karl Lagerferld - Visions of fashion" at Palazzo Pitti. Photo by Europeana Fashion. CC BY SA

The whole event was made possible thanks to the recent collaboration between the Gallerie degli Uffizi and the Fondazione Pitti Immagine Discovery, with the support of Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana and Pitti Immagine. The exhibition will be on show from June 15th to October 23rd .

Learn more about it in the Europeana Fashion event area!