Etro Celebrates 50th Anniversary at Milan’s MUDEC Museum
The company will organize an exhibition opening on Sept. 22 during Milan Fashion Week.
MILAN — Etro is gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary with an exhibition, which will be inaugurated on Sept. 22 during Milan Fashion Week.
The exhibit will retrace the history of the company, which was founded in 1968 in Milan as a textile firm by Gerolamo Etro, who quickly transformed it into a luxury lifestyle brand.
“This exhibition was born from the desire of our family to showcase the path we have walked in the past 50 years,” said Jacopo Etro, the company’s home and textile creative director, who is one of Gerolamo Etro’s four children. The others are Kean and Veronica Etro, respectively men’s and women’s fashion creative directors, and Ippolito, who oversees strategic management.
According to Jacopo Etro, the exhibition, which will be hosted at Milan’s MUDEC (Museo delle Culture) museum, “will showcase the evolution of the company with a focus on its present and a eye looking to the future. We also opted for the MUDEC, which being a museum celebrating the different international cultures, really reflects our vision and DNA, always influenced by travels and by an interest for what is far and different.”
Along with a section featuring mannequins showcasing men’s and women’s outfits from past as well as more recent collections, the exhibition will include a range of videos highlighting different aspects of the brand.
In order to put the focus on Etro’s lifestyle attitude, Jacopo Etro said the company is developing customized seats, which will be displayed at the exhibit and then included in the brand’s furniture collection.
“The goal is not to create something too didactic, but we really want this to be an entertaining and playful exhibition… it’s going to be a bit over-the-top actually,” he said, revealing that a series of items coming from the Etro family’s personal collections will interact with the permanent artworks displayed across the MUDEC museum.
In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition, the MUDEC bookstore will carry Etro customized merchandise, while the special Etro 50 capsule collection will make its debut online.
Codesigned by Veronica and Kean Etro, the women’s and men’s capsule includes a selection of cotton T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies, intarsia cotton sweaters, as well as textile accessories such as silk and cashmere scarves, embroidered slip-on footwear, a backpack and a wallet.
Along with the signature Etro 50 crest, they are all embellished with an exclusive print combining Etro’s signature paisley with the “Faithful to Love and Tradition” wording written in a psychedelic style, as well as geometric shapes and cartoonish characters.
Following the online debut, the Etro 50 capsule will be available at the brand’s revamped Milan flagship and, in October, will hit a selection of Etro stores in key international locations, including London, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Los Angeles.