Classy accessories. Fashion accessories between everyday use and social identity 1830-1930. The exhibition at the Giovanni Züst cantonal art gallery in Rancate/Mendrisio – Carlo Franza’s blog

Always considered essential to complete clothing, hats, bags, shoes, gloves, sticks, umbrellas, handkerchiefs and fans are not only everyday objects that have accompanied us in our daily lives for centuries but are also elements that they contribute to defining the status and social belonging of the men and women who wear or use them. With a play on words one could say that these are class objects that also serve to mark class differences within society. The exhibition at the Giovanni Züst cantonal art gallery in Rancate/Mendrisio until 22 February 2026.

Often associated with luxury and power, fashion accessories, thanks to their refined shapes and the refinement and preciousness of the materials with which they are made, also underline the irreducible uniqueness of their owners.
Through a close comparison with their representation in the works of art of the time, the exhibition aims to illustrate the history and evolution of different types of fashion accessories between the 1830s and the first three decades of the 20th century. A period of time that largely coincides with what, not surprisingly, has been defined as the “century of the bourgeoisie” and which shows how the tastes of men and women change rapidly over time: thus elements considered “indispensable” for centuries have sometimes lost some of their charm.
This is the case of the hat, until recently the accessory par excellence, today worn much less frequently; or even the fan, used since the times of the ancient Egyptians to cool off or ward off annoying insects, a popular and regal object at the same time, which reached the peak of success during the reign of Louis In contrast, other accessories have only turned into objects of desire over the last hundred years; among these, shoes and bags.

Along the exhibition itinerary, real objects provide a counterpoint to important representative portraits, lively and animated genre scenes, advertising posters, fashion plates, sales catalogs and fashion magazines. Objects that are almost never simple artifacts of everyday use but true witnesses of the taste and society of the time, as well as examples of great craftsmanship that intrigue, fascinate and lead all of us to reflect both on the lives of those who with care and great creativity designed and skilfully packaged them, and on those of those who purchased and wore them.

Among the over 200 objects on display are around sixty paintings and sculptures from public and private collections by authors from both the Ticino and Italian areas, including some famous names in the history of art such as Giacomo Balla, Giovanni Boldini, Telemaco Signorini, Moses Bianchi, Eliseo Sala, Vincenzo Cabianca, Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Bernardino Pasta, Spartaco Vela, Filippo Franzoni, Adolfo Feragutti Visconti and Luigi Rossi.

However, the exhibition also offers much more, not least the opportunity to delve deeper into the production and marketing of some of these artefacts.
Thanks to the collaboration of the State Center for Dialectology and Ethnography and in particular the Onsernonese Museum of Loco, a focus is placed on the making of straw hats, baskets and bags, a typical activity of Val Onsernone, which exported these products to the Lombard and Piedmont markets, but also to Germany and France. A large historical section also intends to revive, also through photographs, work tools and original documentation, the atmosphere that reigned in the environment of the production and trade of hats in the Ticino area with an excursus dedicated to the most important fashion shops and department stores active in that period, particularly on the Lugano scene.

The exhibition ends with the figure of the Lugano designer Elsa Barberis. The simplified and modern shapes of his clothes in fact mark the beginning, from the 1940s, of a new fashion season and inaugurate a new way of designing and experiencing accessories.

In the fully illustrated catalogue, which accompanies the exhibition, in addition to the interventions of the curators Elisabetta Chiodini and Mariangela Agliati Ruggia, in-depth essays and profiles by: Beatrice Balzarini, Francina Chiara, Alberto Corvi, Mattia Dellagana, Marco Marcacci, Sara Miconi, Claudia are included Paintings, Andrea Sorze.

Carlo Franza