The genius of Gianfranco Ferré on display in Los Angeles

The exhibition ‘Gianfranco Ferré. Design Principles’, curated by the Gianfranco Ferré Research Centre at the Politecnico di Milano, has been inaugurated at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles.

The exhibition explores Gianfranco Ferré's unique approach to fashion design through a selection of drawings and iconic garments, offering visitors an immersive experience enriched by a digital connection with the Ferré archive through images and videos that provide a closer look at the creation/development of the exhibition.

The DRAWINGS WALL is a journey into Ferré's vision of fashion design, understood as a dynamic process, a continuous search for a synthesis between art and science, inspiration and compositional rigor, cultural content and technical innovation.

The drawings are grouped into thematic sections and illustrate some of the fundamental principles of design that inspired the creative process of the designer, an alumnus of the Politecnico di Milano, presenting Gianfranco Ferré's personal “methodology”, a dimension rarely codified in fashion. It starts from the body, and continues with the material, the colour, the detail, the volume and finally the movement.

The garments on display take visitors on an experiential journey into Ferré's stylistic research, in which the principles of design materialize in the infinite variations of the archetypal white shirt, a true icon of the designer's creative work.

‘Design Principles’ is the first exhibition since the Research Centre was established at the Politecnico, which made it an opportunity for reflection on the design principles underlying the work of Gianfranco Ferré, so representative of the polytechnic culture and the continuous trend towards harmonizing the culture of technology and science with that of art.

says Paola Bertola, professor of Design at the Politecnico di Milano and curator of the exhibition together with Rita Airaghi, Steer Advisor of the Centro di Ricerca Gianfranco Ferré.

The drawings and shirts on display are part of the designer's archive – recognized as a heritage ‘of particular cultural interest’ by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities – Archive Supervisory Authority for Lombardy - and today part of the Historical Archives at the Politecnico di Milano.

The Gianfranco Ferré Research Centre, Digital Innovation for Creative and Cultural Industries was established in December 2021 by the Politecnico di Milano following the Ferré family’s donation of the archive and the building of the historic Gianfranco Ferré Foundation.

Under the coordination of the Design Department’s Fashion in Process Research Laboratory, the Research Centre intends to systematize the technical and scientific know-how and the culture of design that distinguish the Politecnico di Milano with the tangible and intangible heritage relating to the history, culture and techniques of fashion preserved and promoted by the Gianfranco Ferré Foundation since 2008.

This exhibition also gives us the opportunity to share some of the very first research experiments that will lead to the development of an ambitious ‘augmented archive’ project over the next three years.

Find out more
The exhibition is set up at the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, 1023 Hilgard Avenue.
Download the exhibition catalogue
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Los Angeles
Centro di Ricerca Gianfranco Ferré

For the pictures © Luca Stoppini