ACM News

ACM students join Sylvio Giardina’s performance at Trinità dei Monti

Students dressed in black working around a table in the frescoed refectory, while a man in glasses carries a white goose-shaped cutout

Five third-year Costume & Fashion students took part in a project by ACM alumnus Sylvio Giardina, curated by Isabella Vitale, bringing together couture, artistic heritage and the creative process.

Alice Mecco, Anna Renzi, Anita Tanturli, Claudia Zuccaroli and Marta Naldoni, third-year students on the BA in Costume & Fashion at Accademia Costume & Moda, participated in TRINITÀ DEI MONTI, a performance conceived by Sylvio Giardina and curated by art historian Isabella Vitale at the Convent of Trinità dei Monti in Rome.

The experience brought them directly into the making of the work alongside a designer whose own journey began at ACM. An Accademia Costume & Moda alumnus, Giardina explores the relationship between couture craftsmanship and the visual arts, with garments forming part of a creative language that extends to installation and performance.

A standing student cuts a printed reproduction with scissors, next to two people seated at the work table
The frescoed refectory seen from the far end, with the work table in the centre, the audience along the walls and colourful tapestry fragments on the floor
White dress with dark embroidery on a lit mannequin at the centre of a dark loggia with frescoed lunettes
A student seen from behind, with a long braid, holding a red cut-out fragment with floral motifs

Cutting as a creative act

Inside the Refettorio dei Minimi, decorated by Andrea Pozzo in 1694 with frescoes depicting The Wedding at Cana, a table served both as a reference to the painted banquet and as an atelier workbench.

Here, the students participated through the act of cutting, working with photographic reproductions of the frescoes and the tapestries from La Dame à la licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn). Figures and details, removed from their original images, became the material for a new composition.

Giardina gradually assembled these fragments on the refectory floor, creating a large collage before the audience: a preparatory design for an imagined seventh tapestry. Deliberately remaining at the design stage, the work was left open to further transformation.

For the students, taking part meant entering the designer’s research process and contributing to the transformation of historical references into a new visual language.

From Paris to Rome: couture and artistic heritage

TRINITÀ DEI MONTI marks the second chapter of a project that began in Paris with Mon Seul Désir, Giardina’s Autumn/Winter 2026/27 Haute Couture collection, presented at the Musée de Cluny – musée national du Moyen Âge and inspired by The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries.

In Rome, this exploration entered the Baroque setting of the refectory. Isabella Vitale’s curatorial approach guided the transition from collection to performance, revealing what precedes a finished work: the selection of references, the deconstruction of images and the decisions through which an idea takes shape.

Close-up of a hand holding a spoon above cut-out image fragments on the refectory floor
Lilac dress with appliqués and a train on a lit mannequin, in a dark loggia with frescoes
A man in glasses, crouching on the floor, arranges the cut-out fragments of the large collage
The refectory seen from the table towards the entrance, with the floor covered by the collage of tapestry fragments

Sharing knowledge across ACM generations

The encounter between Giardina and the five students gave tangible expression to the relationship between the Accademia and its alumni. Atelier knowledge became a shared practice, allowing the students to explore the connections between fashion, art and space through observation and direct participation.

The experience brought their education into a professional creative setting, approaching historical heritage as material to question and reinterpret.

Discover the BA in Costume & Fashion at Accademia Costume & Moda.