Gianfranco Ferré inside the lens of great photographers. The exhibition at the Forte di Bard in Aosta – Carlo Franza’s blog

The exhibition dedicated to “Gianfranco Ferré inside the goal, created by Forte by Bard and curated by the Gianfranco Ferré Research Center of the Polytechnic of Milan and CZ Photography, open until 9 March 2025, presents a new path dedicated to the great architect and stylist eighty years after his birth.

The exhibition itinerary is designed to tell the public about Gianfranco Ferré’s work starting from photographic images, B/W, color and color prints, slides, contact sheets and enriched by clothes, sketches and drawings.

The protagonist of the narrative is the section photo from the Gianfranco Ferré Historical Archive: beyond 90 works, never exhibited beforeof eight masters of fashion photography who worked with Ferré on iconic advertising campaigns: Gian Paolo Barbieri, Guy Bourdin, Michel Comte, Patrick Demarchelier, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Bettina Rheims and Herb Ritts.

The six rooms that accompany the photo gallery are inspired by the metaphor of the darkroom and tell the story of the image production process through contact sheets, color photos, slides and shots annotated by the photographers. At the same time they reveal the designer’s creative process by introducing six operating principles he often evokes – compose, reduce, emphasize, recalibrate, deconstruct, excite – which bring the photographic language back to Ferré’s work, combining the images with other central elements of design such as drawings, material folders and the clothes themselves. The path therefore creates continuous references that allow to read the stylist’s work in the characterizing traits of the different photographers: from the compositional rigor of Barbersto the quick and essential shots of Comte; from the chiaroscuro stories of Lindberghto the intensity of the portraits of Rheims; from the eccentric shots of Bourdinto the refined naturalness of Demarchelier; from the graphic classicism of Rittsup to the complexity of Meiselcapable of filtering through the glossy reality of fashion a sharp look at contemporaneity.

An exhibition which, through a multidisciplinary and non-chronological path and explorations of virtual and augmented reality developed within the Research Center, aims to restore a complete vision of the work of Gianfranco Ferré, who regarding the relationship between fashion and photography wrote: “The stylist must not only clearly know what he wants, but also choose the right interlocutor, the one who will give body, colour, light and magic to his idea. He must communicate with the photographer, establish complicity, give him autonomy, but with the certainty of being able to recognize himself in the image created. It’s a question of feeling, of understanding. Of course, experience and professionalism play an important role; but without the ability to create together, to share emotions, to make the eye and the soul work together, photography will be empty, cold, useless and false.” – Gianfranco Ferré, Lettres à un young couturierBalland: Paris,1995.

Gianfranco Ferré (1944-2007). Gianfranco Ferré was born in Legnano on 15 August 1944. After graduating from high school in science, he enrolled in Faculty of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan, where he graduated in 1969. His debut in the world of fashion took place in this period: Ferré designed bijoux and accessories, noticed almost by chance by some fashion editors. In 1973 Gianfranco Ferré undertook his first trip to India, where, on behalf of an Italian company, he designed and had a clothing line produced locally, the “Ketch” collection. At the same time he started a series of stylistic consultancies with various clothing companies. The first ready-to-wear collections and fashion shows date back to 1974: “Les Grenouilles”, “Courlande” and “Baila”. The foundation of the “Gianfranco Ferré” company dates back to May 1978 and the first women’s ready-to-wear fashion show in October of the same year. The launch of men’s clothing in 1982 and the creation of accessories and products made under license was then added, from 1986 to 1989, by the experience of Haute Couture, with fashion shows in Rome. In 1983 he participated in the birth of the “Domus Academy”, a post-university design school, where, until 1989, he directed the “Clothing Design” course.
In May 1989 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Maison Christian Dior for the women’s Haute Couture, Prêt-à-Porter and Fourrure lines. A position that will last until 1996. In March 2007 Gianfranco Ferré was appointed President of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
Gianfranco Ferré passed away on 17 June 2007.

Carlo Franza