Rodarte Renaissance: The Mulleavys On Their Installation at Pitti W

Otherworldy. Visionary. Almost a religious experience, in a faraway place. All these descriptions could be applied to the unveiling of the Mulleavy sisters’ installation of ten Rodarte dresses, suspended, as if by miracle, in an empty storefront in Florence at the Italian womenswear trade show Pitti W on Thursday night. “Bartolini is a store just outside the Duomo and Baptistery that everyone in Florence knew,” explain the designers of their choice of location. “The interior is unfinished, meaning most of the rooms had their decorations removed. We presented the garments in separate cell-like spaces, which mirror those seen at the San Marco monastery.”

Presentations without a model in sight might come off as a poor alternative to seeing girls in dresses, but this time, the results rise above the limitations of fashion—almost literally. Framed in haloes of neon light, the sisters’ dresses were inspired by their studies of Italian religious art: Fra Angelico’s early Renaissance frescoes at San Marco, the wildly voluptuous High Baroque Bernini altarpiece, and The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, in Rome. “We love the fact that Fra Angelico painted such sculptural and color saturated figures and retained such emotional features,” says Kate. “We chose the colors of the dresses based on strong colors often seen in the artworks.” The looks on display, some cut and draped in taffeta, evoke the sculpted folds of the Bernini marble and are held with metalwork belts constructed to radiate outwards like the golden beams in St. Teresa’s vision. The impact: wondrous, emotional, uplifting—and yet, it was all over in one evening. The morning after a jam-packed party, the sisters and the installation makers were back at the site to break down the installation and be ready to catch their plane home to L.A.

Detail shot of a look from the Rodarte installation
Photo: Autumn de Wilde/Courtesy of Rodarte

The Mulleavys had been the guests of Pitti W, which encourages and finances one-off creative projects from designers, and, happily, this one will have an American afterlife. All the dresses have been donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Thus fashion about art is destined to become fashion in an art museum—transcending wearers, sales, and the entire worldly function of fashion itself. It doesn’t herald the beginning of a new couture line, or anything of the sort, the sisters firmly insist. Still, something tangible is materializing from last night: the release of the first book dedicated to their work, Rodarte: Photographs by Catherine Opie and Alec Soth will be available from JRP|Ringier on August 31 for all to take home and adore. “Cathy focused on portraits of our garments, and Alec documented places we love in California,” explains Laura. “We titled the book the way we did because, in the end, all of our work resulted in a narrative.”