Behind the vision of the best of Italy's fashion creators

Fashion dates, but style never does: the well-known truism crossed my mind frequently whilst working on Masters of Style, an exhibition to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, supported by the Italian beer company, Peroni. My first reaction was to ask designers to let us show a choice of their clothes in an exhibition to celebrate Italy's most famous creators. But realising that to sift and select from a potentially huge archive – Missoni was founded in the fifties, for example, and Ferragamo twenty years before that – I decided to narrow the field and do something different, something that was a distillation of the designers' own thoughts about their clothes. The thinking went like this: the collection shown during a fashion week is the final selection by the designer of the many ideas that contribute to the seasonal 'look', carefully chosen to satisfy aesthetic and commercial needs. But, after that, comes an even more intimate and subtle selection as the designer and his team decides what to place before a wider audience than the few hundred fashion insiders who actually see the show.

We are talking about the photographed publicity campaign that every major fashion house starts working on immediately after the show… if not before. It consists of a series of photographs of the designer's choice of the clothes that in his or her opinion – and those of a close team of collaborators - really sums up the message of the look for the season. This is the essence, the special phial, the distillation of six month's intense thought experimentation and hard work. But, of course, a photographic campaign lasts for only one season and is then forgotten.

This, I felt, was an area to explore. Looking back over old magazines I realised that this was the field that would make the most rewarding exhibition. The designers agreed and started to go through their archives and choose their favourite images from the past. What they came up with was a treasure trove of iconic fashion shots by many of the world's greatest fashion photographers using the top models and most exotic locations.

In order to make the story complete, I felt that the stories behind the shots might be equally as interesting as the visual story and maybe even more so. And so it has proved. Anecdotes, recollections and explanations directly from the designers themselves made everything about the exhibition theirs and gave it a deeper meaning than anything a curator might wish to say.

Nevertheless, I do want to say what I have taken from this experience. Firstly, I would draw attention to the fact that, although in my opinion all of the chosen designers: Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Missoni and Prada are entirely Italian in their spirit and aesthetic, they are all entirely international, able to take something that always reflects their culture and make it into a globally desirable product which is projected by the skill of the photographers (including Mario Testino, Steven Meisel and Paolo Roversi) and their teams, the models (ranging from Gisele and Kate Moss to Isabella Rosellini and Madonna), the stylists and above all the designer him or herself who, almost always, is present at the fashion shoot or, if not, has briefed the protagonists very closely indeed concerning his or her vision. In fact, most relationships between the designer and the photographer are long-term and certainly cover several seasons. 

The second thing is that, different as the designers are in personality and creativity, this exhibition makes clear that the reason why Italian fashion has swept the world and why Milan is still the major player in providing clothes that sell all across the globe is that they represent what the world thinks of as the characteristics of the Italian nation, such as craftsmanship of the highest order, luxury and quality unbeatable anywhere plus, of course, that certain something in the nation's psyche that makes Italy a country where we all want to go for the good life of sun and fun, food and wine, sex and sandy beaches…. Add your own favourites and they will be found not only in Italy but, I believe, also in this uniquely personal exhibition created by the designers to honour and mark a momentous point in the history of their nation. 

Colin McDowell is a fashion historian and author of many books on the subject, including Fashion Today.