Pucci has made its mark on its hometown’s landmark Baptistery, and over this past week if you happen to have been anywhere near Florence’s Battistero di San Giovann, one of the city’s oldest intact buildings, you couldn’t of missed it. The aptly named ‘Monumental Pucci’ art installation has done the impossibly eye-stopping, sheathing the entire octagonal Florentine Romanesque structure in 220sqm of Emilio Pucci’s signature Battistero print. Blazing brilliantly in the Tuscan sunlight, the oh so Emilio print made its first star appearance way back in 1957, when the Marquise Emilio Pucci first featured the sweet citron stained shades on a now iconic silk scarf.
Launching as part of Firenze | Hometown of Fashion, a celebration, to end all celebrations, of the 60th anniversary of the Centre of Florence for Italian Fashion, running alongside the current Pitti Uomo events. Singling out the ancient art city for wonderful laudation, both the trademark flamboyant tempo of Pucci and Italian fashion have been stitched into each square metre of the Baptistery’s new look. For the first time in history that the octagonal mega-structure has taken on a different façade, the installation is remarkably at one with the not just the architecture, but all that the Hometown of Fashion stands for.
Visitors are invited to view the installation until Sunday the 22nd June.
By Liam Feltham