Ferdinando Sarmi New York: A Journey Through Fashion from Florence to Fifth Avenue

You walk into a room where the museum has opened its storage boxes: hat trimmings from the Florentine milliner Leonella, sorted by colour and type. They're here because Sarmi loved flowers, enough that Irene Brin titled a Harper's Bazaar piece on him "Ditelo con i fiori" (Say it with flowers).

Elizabeth Arden spotted the Ravenna-born count at Florence's 1951 Giorgini show and took him to New York, where he dressed Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Pat Nixon. Curator Vanessa Gavioli counts 12 dresses, in the 19th-century ballroom of the Palazzina della Meridiana and adjoining rooms; the shoes are period but not his. Pages from three collage albums he made himself share the hat-box room, and tiny original photos place him in a milliner's scene of Antonioni's Cronaca di un amore.

Il Giornale dell'Arte called Antonio Godoli's staging refined. It is a compact stop within a Pitti visit, covered by the palace ticket (€16 on the day, €19 in advance), Tuesday to Sunday until 6:30pm, through 31 December.