Fashion Can Help the World Understand History

Clothing from the past can help to tell a story or it can simply tell what the current trend was during that time.

Sometimes it can tell the status or the history of a family.

Nevertheless, fashion can help the world understand what life was like before we can even begin to imagine.

A museum that tells about the past and helps the world to learn about history is the Pitti-Museo della Moda e del Costume.

The Pitti-Museo della Moda e del Costume is located in the small building of the Meridiana of the Pitti Palace.

The Pitti Palace is located located on the south side of Florence and a short walk from the Ponte Vecchio.

For tickets click here.

The collections are from the 18th century to present time.

The pieces throughout the museum show the different trends of fashion, but there was an exhibit that had been recently added at the end that included clothing of a family dug up from their graves for pure research.

The mannequins change throughout the different centuries because the trend of how the female body should look changed throughout time.

The stands that the collections stand on are mirrored floors that make everything shine and sparkle. This helps to catch the eye right when you walk into the room.

Before I was walking through the collections, Mary from New York was walking out of the costume museum speaking to her friends and I stopped to ask her about how it was.

Mary is studying abroad for three months in Florence, and lives close to the museum.

“I had no idea such revolutionary designers and pieces of clothing were hidden in this museum,” Mary said.

The collection includes designers such as Valentino, Gianfranco Ferre and Roberto Capucci.

The first collection is called “Flowers, the Colours of Nature.”

This collection is so bright from the mirrored platform it stands on and makes the collection demand attention from the visitors.

This collection of floral breaks through stereotypes of what floral should look like.

The two female stone heads in the background near the ceiling were made around 1903. It was donated by Fernadad Ojetti in 1933.

The decorations in the room like the two female heads adds character and helps to make the collection come alive.

The floral evening dress was created by Dior in 1992.

The mannequin gives the Dior dress attitude that a plain mannequin never could do.

To read about how Dior started click here.

“Twists” is the next collection that shows how the designers let themselves imagine different shapes and make them pop out to the person looking at their piece.

This collection is unique because the designers let their imaginations run wild with these pieces.

This collection introduces Gianfranco Ferre who pushed the limited and created living pieces for fashion.

For more information about Gianfranco Ferre click here.

Starting from the left, we have a couture leotard and skirt made in the summer of 1989. The leotard is made with tulle and seed pearls. The skirt was created with lace, tulle, and organza.

These gowns by Gianfrance Ferre were made to standout and make a statement.

The couture dress in the middle has silk shantung with nettings and sequins.

The couture dress on the right is a silk and raffia kadi.

The red dress created by Gianfranco Ferre was made in the Winter of 1992. It is a ready-to-wear dress with a gilded haberdashery.

This red gown by Ferre pops from the room with a more modern trend of simple with gold detailing.

"Engravings" brings us to the next collection that has a futuristic style and some of these pieces show how the trends are being pushed to the limits.

Antonio Marras created this dress in the winter of 1998 with lurex gauze and plastic. This dress also includes silvered pantent, joined by flucturing white cotton thread.

Antonio Marras looks like he created something of the future. This piece shows how he was looking to the future trend.

Mila Schon created these two evening gowns in the winter of 1967.

The silver and blue evening dress on the left is made with tulle embroidered with glass and diamante tubes.

This dress shows the conservative clothing they wore in the 1960s, but also shows a futuristic sparkle with the tulle embroidered with glass.

The evening gown on the right by Mila Schon was created with silk and embroidered with gilded and anthracitic grey seed peals. This dress shows that the 1960s was not a time of revealing clothing.

Perfectly formed circles never set a fashion trend because they are eternal that are both classic and abstract.

This "Polka Dot" collection shows how polka dots can be used in different pieces of clothing.

This brings us to the next collection called “Polka Dots.”

Circles and polka dots never go out of fashion and are a safe bet.

The world of fashion has seen polka dots for centuries. To learn more about the history of polka dots click here.

The jacket on the far left by Gianfranco Ferre is a suit comprising a jacket, t-shit and skirt created in the summer of 1988.

This jacket has polka dots that come off of the jacket and make a three dimensional look to it.

Next, the eye catches the long white coat with black polka dots. This Valentino coat was created around 1988.

The silk coat with sequin appliques shines from the mirrored platform. This shows how polka dots can look fancy and important in a piece of clothing.

Roberto Capucci has his masterpiece of a printed silk dress in this collection the third from the left.

Roberto Capucci created this beautiful evening gown with a simple dress and an extravagant bow detail.

Read more about Roberto Capucci click here.

This magnificent dress makes a bold statement of a plain black dress and the polka dot bow catches your eye with the polka dots on the bottom of the ruffled dress.

Federico Forquet shows this short dress with a single giant polka dot on the left corner of the bottom of the dress.

Valentino steals the show again with the evening gown on the right.

To learn who Valentino was and how it began click here.

This Valentino gown was created in 1990 with silk and sequin appliques.

The last piece is a Manifattura italiana hat made with felt.

Accessories can have polka dots too! This felt hat is the perfect accessory to pair with any outfit.

Everyone loves a little sparkle in their wardrobe, but the next collection “Light Confetti” brings sparkle to a whole new level.

The "Light Confetti" collection brings the old with the new, but still shines bright with each decade it gets older.

The gold evening dress on the left was made by Pino Lancetti around 1968.

This dress was created with silk organza and sequins.

The pink long evening gown was created around 1930 and was made by Manifattura Italiana.

The Giorgio Armani dress on the right shines and almost blinds the vistors when walking in the room. It is a magnificent evening gown made in the winter of 2011.

The different evening gowns from the different decades look like they could be worn in the same decade, but the designers were inspired by the shine and look of wealth in all the evening gowns.

The shine does not stop at just the evening gowns. Even the shoes have sparkle to them.

These Louboutin's sparkle in the glass case.

The pair on the left were made by Christian Louboutin in the fall of 2013. The leather with plastic netting and diamante help to make sure you stand out from the crowd in these stunning shoes.

The pair on the right were also made by Christian Louboutin in the winter of 2011.

The shoes are called “Bridget’s Back spiker.”

These shoes are daring and call for the attention of the room.

To shop for shoes like these or to learn about Christian Louboutin visit this website.

While walking into this collection, I ran into a woman admiring this collection and I asked her what she thought about it.

Hanne is from the Netherlands and is studying Italian language while studying abroad for a month.

“I had heard about this costume museum from a friend of mine, but I was not expecting so many pieces of couture,” Hanne said.

Hanne stands admiring this beautiful collection that shines with wealth. Hanne dreams of this kind of future wealth.

We admired the Louboutin’s togethers and she gazed upon them with determined eyes.

“Looking at these shoes make me want to be successful and rich so I can one day wear these around,” Hanne said.

Now, imagine getting to research a famous family from just the clothes they were buried in.

That is what researchers did with family members of the Medici family.

The rare examples of sixteenth century documented and restored Italian costumes of Cosimo I, Eleonora di Toleda and their son don Garzia are in this collection.

The clothes that they were wearing during their burial were proven according to the museum to be their everyday clothes and not their special burial clothing.

Their coffins were opened in 1947 and examined for the sake of anthropological research.

Here lies Cosimo I de' Medici's clothing from his grave.

Professionals from multiple fields came to look upon these findings and study them. The frabrics were so fragile and this brought a lot of confusion about the pieces.

This project took ten years to complete because of the multiple tomb openings and grave shifting.

The only guide for this project were the reports written and photographs taken, but even then there were false writings.

While trying to piece the clothing together, multiple times the material would turn to dust.

Here are the garments of Elenora di Toledo when she was buried.

Here is what Elenora di Toledo's clothing would have looked like before it became so brittle from the time.

The researchers finally got them flattened and then started piecing them together.

There were no rules to this conservation. They just wanted to learn from these garments.

According to the museum, the aim of this conservation was to preserve as much as possible and save the history of the garments.

During their research, they used electronic microscopes with energy dispersive spectroscopy on the garments.

Here are Elenora di Toledo's stockings and

To learn more about the Medici family click here.

Their results found the original coloring of garments and gave exact and detailed descriptions of the Medici wardrobe.

These researches of fashion and burial clothings must make you wonder what people would think of your attire in centuries to come.

Fashion is always changing, and being able to keep looking at the trends and researching past fashion can help us learn about what the world and people were like before us.