iPalazzo Reale di Milano · Centro Storico
Over 200 paintings, drawings, photos, garments and jewels trace Salvador Dalí's surrealist collaborations with fashion designers, photographers and maisons.
A woman's shoe turned upside down and worn as a hat. A giant lobster across a white silk evening gown. A man's dinner jacket hung with dozens of liqueur glasses. All three come from Dalí's 1930s turn to fashion, much of it made with Elsa Schiaparelli.
More than 200 paintings, drawings, photographs, films, jewels and clothes follow, many never shown in Italy. You start with the couple's own wardrobe, out of Spain for the first time, and Gala's Chanel suits and Pucci dresses stand beside the paintings where Dalí painted her in them. Later sections cover his textile prints, the 1939 Dream of Venus pavilion and the 1960s actions he staged with models in Paco Rabanne's metal-disc dresses. In a city that takes its aperitivo seriously, Dalí's dinner jacket arrives already carrying the glasses.
Recent Schiaparelli and Dior designs are on show too. Tickets are €15, or €17 for an open date; families pay €10 per adult and €6 for ages 6 to 14. Thursdays run to 22:30.
The Aphrodisiac Jacket (1936)
Dalí's own dinner jacket, studded with dozens of small liqueur glasses, shown with the rest of his wardrobe, black bow tie included.
The shoe hat
A woman's shoe flipped upside down and worn on the head, from the Schiaparelli collaboration that began in 1936.
The Lobster Dress
A giant lobster spread across white silk; Cecil Beaton photographed Wallis Simpson in it for Vogue just before she married the Duke of Windsor.
Gala's wardrobe beside her portraits
Animal-print blazers, sailor tops, Chanel suits and dresses by Pucci, Givenchy, Cardin and Dior, hung next to the paintings in which Dalí shows her wearing them.
The Wesley Simpson fabrics
Prints Dalí designed in New York from 1946, covered in flower-headed women, brick walls, rocks with eyes, birds, keys and flies.
You came for Cartier's Crash watch: Il Fatto Quotidiano reports it isn't in the show.
Families pay €10 for one or two adults and €6 for children aged 6 to 14.