Parodi Costume Collection

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Parodi Costume Collection Parodi Costume Collection (PCC) is a private fashion collection, focused on research, education, documentation and restoration.

Parodi Costume Collection’s vast archive comprises over two hundred years of fashion history that starts with a very spe...
09/30/2026

Parodi Costume Collection’s vast archive comprises over two hundred years of fashion history that starts with a very special piece dated circa the last decade of the 1700’s. This gown perfectly exhibits the characteristics of an aesthetic rooted in antiquity.
 
Brought into popularity by the rise of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the dissolution of the French monarchy, neoclassicism bases its visuals and ethos in Greek and Roman antiquity. One, exemplified in this evening gown, is the laurel wreath, signifying triumph and honor. In ancient Greece, laurel was bestowed upon the winner of the Olympics, while in ancient Rome, they were bestowed upon civil officials and warriors. The Laurel Wreath was an essential visual mark of the First French Empire. 
 
The neoclassical style remained in fashion across Europe for the following years, and slowly started expanding and reverting to voluminous styles in the midcentury. Although it might seem short-lived, this design philosophy had a lasting impact on fashion as it has been reinterpreted many times since. Some examples from within the Parodi Costume Collection archive include a 1960’s pink and silver brocade dress, a 2000’s silk organza empire waist mini dress, and even Edwardian day dresses with lightweight cotton and embroidered florals.
  
Discover more stories from the Parodi Costume Collection and explore the history behind these garments on our Substack. Link in bio.
 
Text by Sofía Sidelnik 🕊
 
# LouisHippolyteLeroy

09/25/2026

From the Parodi Costume Collection archive Issey Miyake S/S 1993 bouncing dress

Credits : Sylva Holman Sylva in the half light

09/08/2026

An interview from Yves Saint Laurent’s Autumn/Winter 1970–71 women’s collection. Read our substack how this offers a glimpse into a pivotal moment in fashion, as the industry moved beyond the traditional couture system and toward the rise of ready-to-wear.

Link in bio.

Video courtesy of Upscaled Runways.

#ʀᴇᴀᴅʏᴛᴏᴡᴇᴀʀ

For much of the twentieth century, fashion belonged to Paris. Until the early 1970s, French couture houses held an almos...
09/03/2026

For much of the twentieth century, fashion belonged to Paris. Until the early 1970s, French couture houses held an almost unquestioned authority over what the world considered fashionable. Wealthy American clients traveled seasonally to Europe to visit couture ateliers, commission garments, and return home with wardrobes inspired by the latest Parisian collections. For everyone else, American fashion was largely an exercise in translation.
 
Vogue even advertised these garments as “Paris Copies—for U.S.A. Wearing. ” The system was effective, but it established a clear hierarchy: Paris created, America consumed.
 
By the early 1970s, Parisian hierarchy was beginning to fracture. Ready-to-wear transformed the fashion industry, offering consumers new ways to access designer clothing without the exclusivity of couture. Simultaneously, political, economic, racial, and gender upheaval was reshaping culture. The traditional fashion system felt anachronic, and increasingly out of step in a rapidly changing world.
 
In the Parodi Costume Collection, luxury fabrics and direct interpretations reveal these historical changes. Christian Dior’s flared looks were reinterpreted for Sears Jr. Bazaar, and Sears, Roebuck & Co., reflecting the shift toward mass-market youth culture. Similarly, fabrics purchased abroad were used to create a knee-length, pointed-collar dress from Yves Saint Laurent fabric, sold exclusively in the United States.
 
These trends are also evident in Parodi Costume Collection’s extensive Yves Saint Laurent archive. The collection captures the house’s transition from haute couture to ready-to-wear through Rive Gauche, launched in 1966, helping pave the way for a fashion renaissance.
 
Ready-to-wear marked a turning point in fashion. As clothing moved beyond the couture atelier and into the hands of a wider public, designers, manufacturers, consumers began reshaping what fashion could be.
 
Discover more stories from the Parodi Costume Collection and explore the history behind these garments on our Substack. Link in bio.
 
Text by Sophia Mijares
 

 
 
 


Long before the Bikini became a mainstream symbol of summer fashion and self-expression, it was one of the most controve...
08/27/2026

Long before the Bikini became a mainstream symbol of summer fashion and self-expression, it was one of the most controversial garments ever designed; its journey reflects changing attitudes toward women’s bodies, social norms, and ideas of modesty. Although two-piece garments existed for centuries, the modern bikini was not introduced until 1946— when introduced by French designers Jacques Heim and Louis Réard- from there on, it revolutionized fashion and culture.

Parodi Costume Collection’s extensive 1920s swimwear archive reflects an era which preserves elements of modesty, with more progressive streamlined silhouettes that reveal more of the body than in previous decades, effectively delivering greater freedom of movement. This shift accompanied the transformation of “bathing” into swimming as an active sport and leisure pursuit, introducing a new garçonne-inspired silhouette that reshaped the swimsuit.

By the 1930s, tanning became a symbol of luxury, inspiring smaller, open-back styles. WWII brought fabric rationing, requiring a 10% reduction in materials, effectively encouraging smaller silhouettes. However, bikinis remained controversial in the 1950s, and censored in parts of the Mediterranean, before gradually embraced in Europe. PCC’s 1950s swimwear collection highlights this transitional period, when two-piece styles were gaining popularity while the one-piece remained the prevailing social norm.

Social changes in the 1960s transformed the bikini into a staple. Innovation continued with the introduction of the tankini in 1998, offering a two-piece silhouette with greater coverage. PCC’s 1960’s through 2000s swimwear collections trace this ongoing transformation, revealing how changing social attitudes, technologies, and fashion trends transformed the swimsuit—from an object governed by modesty and social convention into a garment associated with freedom, movement, and self-expression.

Discover more stories from the Parodi Costume Collection and explore the history behind these garments on our Substack. Link in bio.

Text by Alexandra Galvez





Hong Kong, a British colony from the 1800s until 1997, emerged as a major post WWII center of textile production and gar...
08/20/2026

Hong Kong, a British colony from the 1800s until 1997, emerged as a major post WWII center of textile production and garment manufacturing. By the 1970s, an estimated one-third of ready-to-wear clothing available in the West was manufactured in this location.

As production expanded, international trade restrictions—including cotton quotas imposed to protect European and American textile industries—encouraged Hong Kong manufacturers to diversify and experiment with alternative materials, including wool blends and knitted textiles. What began as spinning factories developed into increasingly sophisticated manufacturing systems capable of producing complete garments under one roof.

Parodi Costume Collection’s archive captures this period of rapid expansion through its collection of garments produced in British Hong Kong. Among them is a golden sequin blouse with a Zephyr wool shell, made from merino wool known for its ability to absorb aniline dyes and produce vivid colors. Another highlight is a fully knitted party dress, covered in sequins and originally sold at Alexander’s department store in New York.

Ornate knitted tops, dresses, cardigans, and beaded accessories became popular in Western boutiques, often featuring satin linings, metal zippers, elaborate sequins, and highly detailed woven labels.
These labels became more than markers of origin. They communicated quality, provenance, status, and increasingly became tools of fashion marketing. Some manufacturers even positioned labels so they would remain visible when a jacket was casually draped over a chair.

Through these garments, PCC’s collection reveals how trade, manufacturing, materials, and marketing transformed Hong Kong into an essential part of the global fashion system. Discover more stories from the Parodi Costume Collection and explore the history behind these garments on our Substack. Link in bio.

Text by Sofia Sidelnik

Maria Monaci Gallenga, Italian fashion designer (1880-1944), was the daughter of Ernesto Monaci, a Romance philologist a...
08/05/2026

Maria Monaci Gallenga, Italian fashion designer (1880-1944), was the daughter of Ernesto Monaci, a Romance philologist and Dante scholar. With her husband, Pietro Gallenga, a professor at the University of Rome, she developed the metallic printing that became her signature, working from around 1914 in a studio in Florence. With Mariano Fortuny and Henriette Negrin, she stood as the interpreter of the Twentieth century Italian Renaissance in cloth.
PCC’s Gallenga’s cape is a machine for the return of the past. Along its hem, crowned lions confront one another, eagles are displayed, and a band of script offers the form of writing while withholding its sense; the Italian Renaissance recurs as force. This is the territory historian Aby Warburg named the Nachleben der Antike, not the revival of a dead style but its afterlife, the survival of charged forms.
Contemporaries could not name what they saw, describing prints that seemed neither painted nor woven, and her own publicity sold the method as an arcanum, the discovered secret of fixing gold and silver into the cloth. The rhetoric is quasi-alchemical: base pile transmuted to noble metal, impermanence sold as permanence, the knowledge guarded. What the block in fact deposits is metallic powder over an adhesive ground, one tone bleeding into the next, the counterfeit of woven brocade. The patina of age is authored: duration is manufactured. Gallenga printed each cloth after it was cut, placing the pattern by hand: every object is singular, a refusal of the serial logic of the industrial bolt and a claim, in the Arts and Crafts spirit, for the textile as authored work.

Maria Monica Gallenga, Opera Cape rendered in silk Velvet, with proprietary metallic block printing motifs, ca.1925, from the Gallenga archive at Parodi Costume Collection.

Text by Marta Franceschini, PhD. Marta Franceschini

Photography credits to 🕊 and Jess

To learn more about Mara Monaci Gallenga and the Gallenga archive at Parodi Costume Collection read our new Substack article by Marta Franceschini, PhD. In the link in Bio.

PCC is home to over 150 Oscar de la Renta objects, dating from his partnership with Jane Derby in the late 1960s to the ...
07/22/2026

PCC is home to over 150 Oscar de la Renta objects, dating from his partnership with Jane Derby in the late 1960s to the signature Oscar de la Renta label through the 2010s. The garments held within the PCC archive tell the story of the emblematic features that shaped Oscar de la Renta’s evolution into an established international label.
Originally from the Dominican Republic, de la Renta approached fashion as a conduit of memory and a platform to represent art and cultural identity. His craftsmanship was inspired by his native country’s lush landscapes, Spanish Romanticism, and the dramatic atmosphere of Baroque portraiture.
The featured Black Velvet Evening Gown, F/W 84”, presents exaggerated fuchsia satin sleeves that evoke the theatricality of Spanish court portraiture. The piece conjures sculptural volumes and dramatic contrasts reminiscent of Diego Velázquez’s royal paintings, rendered in the vibrant colors of tropical botany. A second featured object, Metallic Floral Lamé, F/W 2004, displays richly textured brocades that echo the luminous surfaces and ornamental depth of Spanish Baroque art. Again, de la Renta’s references to Caribbean colors and landscapes are present in its floral motifs.
The illustrious designer entered his apprenticeship with Cristóbal Balenciaga, who guided him toward precision in silhouette and construction. De la Renta’s background in art history remained a constant throughout his creative process, paying homage to Spain’s visual culture, particularly the works of El Greco, Diego Velázquez, and Francisco de Zurbarán, whose chiaroscuro, regal compositions, and saturated colors informed the dramatic romanticism in his designs.
As de la Renta’s career progressed, he developed a vocabulary that represented polished American luxury rooted in historical references. This distinguished tailoring is represented in the PCC archive by a structured pink and orange wool coat reminiscent of styles favored by Jacqueline Kennedy. Commercially savvy, his brand expanded into the Miss O line, garnering the attention of actresses such as Sarah J Parker, socialites, and political figures, earning him the moniker “the éminence grise of American fashion”

“What if beauty exists in imperfection?” In Praise of Ma: Emptiness and the Space Within explores Wabi Sabi featured in...
07/17/2026

“What if beauty exists in imperfection?” In Praise of Ma: Emptiness and the Space Within explores Wabi Sabi featured in Rei Kawakubo’s (CDG) Comme des Garçons’ F/W 1982 Destroy Collection. Garments presented in this collection challenged conventional ideas of beauty, including those embodied by the shawl scarf. To many Western audiences, the distressed holes suggested poverty, destruction, degradation and neglect. However, through the lens of Japanese aesthetics, these voids become an expression of negative space, an invitation to appreciate what is missing as much as what is present.

The distressed textiles throughout this collection featured holes and pulls, Kawakubo’s version of “lace.” Specifically, this oversized shawl scarf, made from boiled wool, was intentionally washed, shrunk, agitated, compressed, distressed, and tattered, with irregular fringe-like tails, and raw edges scattered across its surface. Once the fabric reached this dense state, it is deliberately cut and perforated. Rather than unraveling, the compressed fibers preserved each opening, allowing absence to become a permanent and intentional element of the design.

“Destroy” was not coined by Kawakubo. Such title evolved from the audience. When entering Paris in the early 80s, fashion was dominated by glamour, color, and structured silhouettes. Once Kawakubo arrived, many pages were burnt. The audience was horrified. Critics called it “Hiroshima Chic,” depressing, and anti-feminine.

The visual language of Eastern and Western fashion diverged. While Western fashion magazines of the early 1980s were highly polished and idealized, CDG offered something entirely unfamiliar. From the perspective of photographers Peter Lindbergh and more, Kawakubo’s philosophy was translated into a visual language that Western audiences could begin to understand through raw emotion and intention of texture, capturing energy through unconventional movement and dynamic composition. Neither photographer sought to “correct” Kawakubo’s vision or soften its nature. Instead, they embraced its individuality, allowing the garments to be understood not simply as fashion, but as expressions of a new way of seeing.

Education is the primary mission at Parodi Costume Collection and Parodi Costume Institute. We like to think of educatio...
06/26/2026

Education is the primary mission at Parodi Costume Collection and Parodi Costume Institute. We like to think of education as predicated through interactivity, and community building around multi-disciplinary engagement. When the programming behind In Praise of Ma was structured, we looked to complement the exhibition’s conceptual thread with the cultural context around the featured Japanese designers. For opening week, PCC/PCI invited a Zen Samurai to perform a collaborative poetic work in and outside the gallery space, to be followed by a collaborative performance with contemporary artist Max Guevara Max Guevara
 
Sixteenth in his line, Sensei Zen Takai THE ZEN SAMURAI is dedicated to the preservation of the Zen Samurai culture and arts, while sharing his wisdom with contemporary society.
 
As part of the calligraphy performance, Sensei Zen Takai inhabited the exhibition space, meditating alongside the garments while reflecting on the concept of Ma. This meditative process feeds his work to create “an unrepeatable expression of energy that belongs only to the moment of its creation and the space it will inhabit.” The calligraphy produced, currently displayed in the exhibition gallery, is an equal balance of white space and its kanji, a poetic representation Ma made immediately following his mediation.

Sensei Zen Takai’s work it is on view within the exhibition In Praise of Ma; Emptinees and the Space Within, which is now closed to the general public.

Visits are available by appointment only for private events, educational groups, and large parties until august 2026.

For inquiries and reservations, please contact [email protected].

Text by Sofia Sidelnik 🕊

Sequence by Jesus Pineda Jesus





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