AZZEDINE Alaïa. COUTURE/SCULPTURE

Azzedine, a couturier who began his training the study of sculpture, observes the body and space, builds the silhouette with the dress and captures its movement. The clothes exhibited at the Galleria Borghese were chosen or created specifically for the exhibition: the place of sculpture par excellence, the museum expresses its widest range of variants, colours and materials. These match the Tunisian designer’s models which in turn create a common ground for the different disciplines of art. The museum’s timeframes, whether slow or fast, but personal, coincide with those of Alaïa’s creativity.

The encounter between the Galleria Borghese and the works of Azzedine Alaïa takes place within an exhibition project that strives to explore the museum’s identity as a place of sculpture, through contemporary forms. Its works, from antiquity to the nineteenth century, celebrate the body, revealing its softness or enhancing the lines of its profiles, and clad it in garments whose folds are sculpted, surprising and seducing the observer.

In his attention to the material – fabric, leather or metal – whether conceiving the forms or modeling the bodies, Azzedine’s clothes, “soft” sculptures, correspond to the poetics and inventiveness of each sculpted work. A balancing of references reveals the master’s profound perception and assimilation of the place and of the sculptures exhibited.

The dresses are exhibited in themes, colours and forms that are consistent with the works in the various rooms, in order to create continuity with and accentuate the gallery’s collection. The exhibition, inspired by the relationship between the master and the Galleria Borghese, reveals a lot about Alaïa’s creativity,and  his quest for relationships and intersections in shaping the clothes and the female body.