Curator Sonnet Stanfill's two year in the making exhibit of Italian fashion design through several decades disappointed me a little. I am not comparing it to the elaborate fashion exhibits put on by The Legion of Honor or de Young (part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) who have perfected this type of fashion exhibits.
Most dresses hung beautifully but some, like the Dolce and Gabanna mosaic dress, looked as though it was thrown on the falling backwards mannequin as a last minute decision.
Stanfill's research and understanding of the task at hand are perfect but in my opinion she failed in connecting the dots. Her "fashion made by people not technology" and the Italians "The Stilista" term of the early 1970s, referring to someone who mediates between industry, retail buyer, the public and the press could have been explored more.
Her exhibit could have been titled: Italian Fashion, How Designer Ready to Wear Was Born. In a nut shell I personally feel this is what was trying to show us.
After all she had all the goodies at hand, Etro's textile swatch book, Gucci's paper diagrams and great film footage of real Italian women modeling the clothes in formal and informal settings. Unfortunately the two films were shown on screens the size of a kitchen oven while boarding cuts from Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday zooming around on a Vespa swallowed one of the three exhibit rooms turning the affair into another Hollywood experience.