Event Details
Wed, September 20, 2023
12:00 – 13:45
VILLA LA PIETRA
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Florence, Italy
(NYU Students-only)
Students are invited to visit with the curators the on-site exhibition that showcases seven Callot Soeurs gowns with André Perugia and Hellstern & Sons shoes, all custom-designed for Hortense and dated between the 1920s and 30s. The installation is designed imagining the lifestyle and happenings at La Pietra about one century ago: magazines and photographs on display show us the passion of the family and guests for parties and fashion.
Villa La Pietra in the 1920s-1930s was considered one of the most celebrated Florentine places for international taste in the arts, literature and fashion.
Matilde Serao, director of the magazine “La Moda del Giorno,” and a friend of Henry James and Edith Wharton, wrote: “You need to think, judge, choose, dear reader, what is liked by your own innate taste, to the culture of your fantasy, you need to love Fashion as she is if it is in accordance with your own beauty and charm.” Looking at the gowns owned by Hortense Mitchell Acton (1871-1962) we feel that this ‘petite’ and naturally elegant character identified herself with the ‘Callot taste’, using it to assert her personality.
.