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Pinocchio e Geppetto . Foto Greta De Lazzaris

Pinocchio in the costumes of Massimo Cantini Parrini from the film by Matteo Garrone

Show Pinocchio costumes from Matteo Garrone’s film


P.Rew .: Studio Maddalena Torricelli
Prato, Textile Museum – from 21 December 2019 to 22 March 2020.
On the occasion of Christmas 2019, the Prato Textile Museum inaugurates an exhibition dedicated to the award-winning cinematographic costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini.

The exhibition presents an absolute preview of his latest extraordinary work: over 30 costumes created for the film “Pinocchio” by Matteo Garrone, released in theaters on December 19 distributed by 01 Distribution and interpreted by an absolutely exceptional cast, with Roberto Benigni in the shoes by Geppetto, Gigi Proietti of Mangiafuoco, Rocco Papaleo and Massimo Ceccherini in those of the Cat and the Fox.

Of the costumes on display, 25 were made by Sartoria Tirelli, 5 by Sartoria Costumi d’Arte Peruzzi, 2 by Cospazio 26, while wigs by Rocchetti and Rocchetti.Fatina e Pinocchio . Foto Greta De LazzarisMassimo Cantini Parrini
Massimo Cantini Parrini was born and trained in Florence: from the State Art Institute of Porta Romana, to Polimoda, up to the Degree in Culture and Fashion Styling at the University of Florence.

During his academic studies he won the competition at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, becoming a pupil in the costume of the Oscar-winning Piero Tosi. In this absolute master Massimo Cantini Parrini will find the guide of his career, since, in addition to the love and shared passion for the costume designer’s art, he will become an example of dedication and life for the young student. The esteem accorded to him by Tosi led him already at a very young age to be an object of interest for various working environments, so he entered the Tirelli tailoring as an assistant costume designer, and it is with this qualification that he made his debut in cinema alongside the costume designer, also an Oscar winner, Gabriella Pescucci, who calls him to collaborate for over ten years for major international film productions, opera house and various events.

Massimo Cantini Parrini combines his profession as costume designer with an extraordinary passion for period clothes, which he has been collecting since the age of thirteen. To date, his collection boasts more than 4,000 pieces, ranging from 1630 to 1990, all original and of iconic creators and stylists, from which he often draws inspiration and inspiration to create his costumes.

Massimo Cantini Parrini is the only Italian costume designer to have won three consecutive David di Donatello awards (2016-2018) since the first nomination, as well as numerous other prizes and awards, among which Nastri d’Argento, Ciak d’oro and awards in important film festivals. The last and most important recognition is the EFA (European Film Award).

In his curriculum he has more than 50 costume designer productions, many of which for internationally renowned directors. Among his professional experiences, the partnership established with Matteo Garrone, who – before Pinocchio – called him to create the costumes for the films Il Racconto dei Racconti (2015), Dogman (2018), emerges significantly.

The exhibition
The exhibition is divided into two sections: the first dedicated to the costume designer, his sources of inspiration, his creative work and the set, the second to the costumes of the film, accompanied by images taken from the film itself, from the reproduction of some sets and some symbolic props.

The first section allows the visitor to enter the world of this extraordinary costume designer, to penetrate his great passion and knowledge for ancient costumes, his way of working and designing costumes for the show.

A large video on the wall shows excerpts from interviews in which Massimo recounts his vast archive, as a collector became a costume designer, the unraveling of his creative process. The interviews are interspersed with interesting frames taken from the back stage of the filming of the film Pinocchio, through which you can immediately touch the atmosphere of the film set just ended.

An entire wall is also dedicated to the sketches made by Massimo for the Pinocchio film, composed with an interesting mix of manual techniques, photographic documentation and digital retouching. Next to it, a display case contains a selection of workbooks containing the various samples of fabrics selected to make some of the costumes of the film, testifying to the careful research work that precedes the creation of each individual item or accessory.

Finally, a long platform hosts a selection of 7 historical clothing items from the 18th and 19th centuries from the costume designer’s personal collection, used as sources of direct inspiration for the design of the different costumes of the film Pinocchio and accompanied by historical fashion figures. from the museum’s rich collection. Thus, a women’s masked ball gown from 1898 used side by side used as inspiration for the circus; a ceremonial dress from 1834-1836 which, for its romantic style, inspired the dress of the Fairy, a chamber dress from the late nineteenth century which provided a prompt starting point for the dress of the Snail. In addition, a children’s formal dress served as a model for the Pinocchio jacket, a precious marsina from the end of the 18th century that inspired Geppetto’s clothing, an extraordinary jacket in original Casentino cloth to which it refers, in the tailored cut, the jacket of the Talking Cricket, and finally a male outfit of the second half of the 19th century with a dandy flavor, which finds punctual comparisons in the clothing of the Cat and the Fox.

The second section represents a real tribute to the film considered the cinematographic event of the year, showing the 32 costumes made by Massimo Cantini Parrini to dress the main characters of the film.

Geppetto‘s costume consists of a linen tunic, short trousers below the knee and a striped vest. An “out of fashion” style, compared to the story’s late nineteenth-century setting, which is in perfect coherence with the trend of Tuscan folk costume to refer to models of Napoleonic memory, while the masterful wear treatments communicate immediately that those clothes they are the only ones owned by the carpenter for years.Geppetto . Massimo Cantini ParriniThe talking Grillo has always been represented as a learned person, as a professor, and is thus imagined by the costume designer also in Garrone’s version. The small mold-colored suede jacket echoes the cut of the first tailcoat, a garment that appeared in the late eighteenth century but perfected in the early twenties of the nineteenth century. The trousers are short, so as to highlight the skinny legs. He wears a bow tie around his neck, an accessory that confers importance and authority.

A large platform hosts Mangiafuoco and 8 puppets from his theater. The puppeteer is wrapped in a gloomy cotton moleskin coat; he wears wool sweater, cotton moleskin trousers and felt hat. In front of him, lined up like an imaginary theater, the characters of the Commedia dell’Arte, extraordinarily interpreted by Massimo Cantini Parrini with attention to tradition and incredible attention to detail. The costumes of Colombina stand out, dressed with a picket bust like a velvet bodice and printed cotton skirt, decorated with ruffled ribbons with applications of tulle and tassels, that of Gianduia with a pilor jacket with knobs and frogs in trimmings, trousers knee length in silk satin, pilor vest edged with trimmings, straw felucca and trimmings. The Devil‘s costume is also absolutely extraordinary in its vivid representation of the fire itself, composed of velvet jerkin with applications of flame-shaped strips edged with trimmings and tassels, cloth trousers with applications of flame-shaped strips edged with trimmings.

The Cat and the Fox could be cited as emblems of contemporary taste for Vintage. The former dressed in a wool tight and a velvet vest with cashmere motifs, the second with an astrakhan shawl wool coat and a small polka dot silk vest, wear old clothes, reminiscent of a sumptuous past. They are dressed as gentlemen mixing epochs and styles like two old dandies. Pinocchio, who came into the world recently, does not distinguish the styles created with used clothes, old, worn, dirty and out of size which, in his eyes, have an elegant effect.

Pinocchio‘s dress stands in the center of the museum’s temporary exhibition hall, made of jacquard fabric with a rippled effect. From the old and only blanket that Geppetto possesses – also made from an ancient and precious fabric now destroyed – the carpenter sews doublet, trousers, hat and ruff for his baby, all from the same cloth.The shape is very simple: Geppetto is a carpenter not a tailor, although he knows the proportions more than a tailor! The famous paper dress and the famous breadcrumbs hat are rethought by the costume designer as a total look. The choice was motivated by script needs, since it would have been impossible to manage continuous changes of paper clothes on the set or to use them in scenes shot in the rain, in the mud or at the sea. The decision, approved by the director, allowed to transform Pinocchio into the only color note of the film. Red, the color loved by the costume designer, represents anger, love, blood, fire, life, the color of shame: all elements that are part of the adventures of the fairy tale and of the protagonist himself.

The shape of the Blue Fairy dress is present in the girl and adult version. Both are made of cotton gauze, a fabric that has made it possible to age the dress while maintaining its lightness. The appearance of the clothes recalls the romantic period of the nineteenth century, around 1836. The color is diaphanous and fits perfectly with the famous hair, in this case made silvery.

The Medoro dog is presented in a splendid eighteenth-century livery composed of a jacket, vest, trousers in moiré silk decorated with burnished silver chevrons. The gorilla judge wears a moire fabric toga with application of burnished gold cords and tassels and tarlatan gorget.

The Snail‘s costume reflects its phlegmatic character: represented as Collodi had imagined it, the Snail wears the clothes of a sort of nanny or a maid who has always taken care of the Fairy. In fact, she wears a dressing gown with a shrug and cap, the typical morning clothing adopted by all the ladies of the nineteenth century. The clothes are wet from its burr, worn by time, dust and wear, all because of its ancestral slowness and tiredness. The colors are diaphanous but the prevailing one is mauve, a fashionable color at the end of the 19th century, chosen for the appeal of calm and serenity.

The styles of the circus characters also deserve special attention, whose costumes contain all the spirit and fantasy that the costume designer wanted to recreate for this scene. The circus with its characters represents freedom, extravagance, fun, the hoax and the game of dual personality. The inspiration, in this case, does not lie so much in the sartorial model, but rather in the essence that the nineteenth-century circus expresses. In the film, the circus is poor and popular but the beauty of the disguise transforms the show into something exceptional, full of charm and mystery.

The female characters, including the ballerina in a tutu with a bust of undyed velvet, the horse woman and the three-headed woman, perhaps the most complex costume in the film, stand out for their incredible beauty combined with a rare, almost dreamlike compositional fantasy.

Cinema is perhaps the creative industry closest to people and allows to convey cultural content through methods and languages ​​that stimulate the curiosity of non-professionals too. In this sense, the extraordinary costumes created by Massimo Cantini Parrini represent a powerful attractor to promote the culture and knowledge of ancient and contemporary fabrics, costumes and fashion.

The idea of ​​exhibiting the costumes of the Pinocchio film simultaneously with the release of the film in cinemas represents an absolute innovation in the museum field and was possible thanks to the generous collaboration of the costume designer, the director, the production and distribution of the film.

From our point of view, it represents a completely new way of offering the public an experience “Multimedia”, in which the exhibition has the function of “increasing” the experience of fiction cinematographic through the vision of the costumes, with all the heap of knowledge and craftsman knowledge of which they are made.

The catalog
Silvana Editoriale, out in January 2020

The film
Pinochio, an international co-production Italy / France, is produced by Archimede with RAI Cinema and Le Pacte, with Recorded Picture Companuy, in association with Leone FIilm Group, in association with BPER Banca, with the contribution of Mibact – Directorate-General  for Cinema Audoivisual and by Eurimages, with the support of the Regione Lazio – Public notice Film production attraction (Por Fesr Lazio 2014-2020) Project co-financed by the European Union and the Regione Lazio Regional Fund for Cinema and Audiovisual, with the contribution of the RegionePuglia (Por Puglia Fesr-FSE 2014/2020) Apulia Film Commission Foundation and the Regione Toscana – Toscana Promozioni, with the contribution of Canal+ and CINE +. International sales: Hnway Films. Italian distribution: 01 Distribution.

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Temporary Exhibition
Pinocchio in the costumes of Massimo Cantini Parrini from the film by Matteo Garrone
21 dicembre 2019 22 marzo 2020

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Entrance
Whole single: euro 10.00; reduced € 8.00; schools: € 4.00

Timetables
From 21/12/2019 to 7/01/2020 closed on Monday

Tuesday – Sunday: 10-19
Wednesday 25 December: closed
Tuesday 31 December: 10.00-15.00
Wednesday 1 January: 15.00-19.00
From 8/01/2019 to 22/03/20 closed on Monday
Tuesday – Thursday 10-15
Friday – Sunday: 10-19

Guided visits to the exhibition at 4.30pm
Reservations required at 0574-611503
Cost: 10 euro entrance ticket and guided tour
Thursday 26 December
Saturday 28 December
Sunday 29 December
Saturday 4 January
Monday 6 January

From December 21 to January 6, one ticket for 15 euros to visit the Pinocchio exhibitions in the costumes of Massimo Cantini Parrini at the Museo del Tessuto and After Caravaggio. The Neapolitan seventeenth century in the collections of Palazzo Pretorio and the De Vito Foundation at the Palazzo Pretorio Museum.

Activities for families
The Museum offers four events dedicated to families for the Christmas holidays.

Afternoons full of adventures, imagination and lots of creativity!

 Sunday 22 and 29 December at 16.00
A fairytale afternoon. Pinocchio and the Snail … very slow!
Age: 4-6 years

Thursday 26 December and Sunday 5 January at 16.00
A fairytale afternoon. Pinocchio and the puppet theater
Age: 7-10 years

The presence of an accompanying person is required
.

Reservations required at 0574-611503. Cost: 5 € to participant.

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