The IUAV University and the Civic Museums Foundation of Venice, in the Ca 'Pesaro - International Gallery of Modern Art , present the exhibition "Rosa Genoni. Fashion and Politics: a feminist perspective between 800 and 900", curated by Maria Luisa Frisa, who is part of the consolidated Salotto Longhena initiative. The project is part of the broader horizon of research conducted by the IUAV working group dedicated to fashion and its cultural implications, which investigate the archives and publications relating to the protagonists of the history of design. Rosa Genoni is one of these, a central figure for the definition of the made in Italy canon, starting from the history of art and popular costume, a multifaceted and complex personality, seamstress and stylist, teacher and journalist, pacifist and protofeminist. Genoni was the first to conceive a dress reform that places women at the center, both as a consumer and as a worker, at a time when the world of clothing was limited to the mere and limiting aesthetic expression of femininity.
By reversing the perspective, Rosa designs a fashion that is no longer subordinated to a male and xenophilic thought, but the dress becomes a primary opportunity for the manifestation of the creativity, spirit and work of women. It is since the 1980s that the need arises to start a reflection on fashion as a cultural production and force of modernity, exploiting its great progressive potential in favor of female emancipation. Rosa Genoni is a key figure who elaborates a conception of modern fashion, capable of favoring the personal and ideological growth of women, more aware of their historical and militant importance. This avant-garde vision also translates into her role as teacher at the Women's Professional School of the Humanitarian Society of Milan, where teaching becomes a means to train and educate the new generations in personal growth and independence.