From Courtly Dress to Italian Style: Fashion History at Florence's Museo della Moda e del Costume

This chapter examines the Museo della Moda e del Costume at Florence’s Palazzo Pitti as both a site of material preservation and a cultural-political agent in the construction of fashion history. Founded in 1983 as Italy’s first state museum dedicated to fashion, the institution houses garments ranging from Renaissance burial clothes of the Medici family to twentieth-century couture and the origins of “Made in Italy.” Drawing on first-hand observation, archival research, and museum studies frameworks, the chapter analyzes how the museum’s curatorial strategies mediate between art and commerce, heritage and modernity, and national identity and global circulation. Particular attention is given to the interplay of garments and portraits, the conservation of fragile textiles, and the evocative juxtaposition of Renaissance clothing with postwar fashion films. The chapter situates the museum within Florence’s longue durée of textile production and dynastic display, while also positioning it in dialogue with international fashion museums in London, Paris, and New York. Ultimately, the study argues that the Museo della Moda e del Costume is not a neutral repository but an active cultural institution that shapes narratives of Italian identity, European luxury, and the politics of fashion as both art and heritage. By embedding fragile textiles within the symbolically charged setting of the Pitti Palace, the museum crystallizes the tensions and possibilities of fashion museology in a global context.