White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 5Worldwide there are around 90museums dedicated to fashion, textilesand accessories, also taking intoaccount the many national museums ofdecorative arts which have one or morethematic sections. Most of the fashionmuseums are located in the countrieswhich have historically producedtextiles and fashion (Italy, France, butalso the United Kingdom and theUSA). These museums were originallyfounded at the behest of collectors orsovereigns (this is the case with thecostume gallery in the Palazzo Pitti,Florence, the Ratti Foundation inComo, but also the Victoria and AlbertMuseum, London) and/or due to thepresence of local highly specialisedmanufacturing industries related to thesector (as in the case of most Italianmuseums) or fashion design schools, asin many US institutions). Museumsmay also be the result of a decisionmade in recent years to relaunch andsustain the local fashion industry andstylists (as in the case, for example,with some Spanish, Belgian, Dutchmuseums and the Marseilles Museum).In Italy most museum collections areassociated with specialised localproductions: textiles (silk and cotton),accessories (i.e. eyewear, hats,footwear), luxury items (jewellery andperfumes) and craft objects (lace andcarpets). There are very few generalistcollections or collections dedicated toindividual stylists, which are morefrequent in France.In Italy there are no traces, at least notin their names, of museums explicitlydedicated to fashion. The main featureof most Italian museums is that ofbeing associated with the world ofmanufacturing: they document theheritage of knowledge, techniques andcreations of a local area, or a specificindustry or specific designer. Specialistor corporate museums are the largestcategory of Italian design museums,which highlights the importance thecountry’s economy of the textilessector, clothing manufacturing andaccessories.The most important collections fromthe historical point of view and interms of cultural policies are:• Museo del Tessuto Italiano, Prato.• Fondazione Antonio Ratti -Museo Tessile, Como;• Civiche Raccolte d'Arte Applicata,in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan;• Galleria del Costume di PalazzoPitti, Florence;• Museo Ferragamo in the PalazzoFeroni, Via de' Tornabuoni, Florence.None of the museums, however,except for the Galleria del Costume diPalazzo Pitti in Florence, which alsohas strong links with the annualFashion Fair and events held in thecity, is a fashion museum in thestrictest sense of the term. There are nocollections explicitly dedicated tofashion, creators and innovations, butrather collections documenting thehistorical evolution of dress. What wewould expect of a fashion museum infact is that it would change over timeby often renewing its content, gaspingtrends and innovations, suggestingpaths for creativity and acting as aWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 129