Ferragamo Silk exhibition, Florence

From March 25th till April 18th, 2022 the Ferragamo Museum in Florence opens its doors to a new exhibition called ”Silk”. Could there be a better new start for my blog which was recently completely destroyed by a virus? No there couldn’t. Backup? Yes, there is a backup, but do my ideas and thoughts of twelve years ago correspond to how I think today? Would I be “politically correct”, which nowadays is quite an issue? Probably not. So, I decided to fill these first white pages of my blog with good vibes, new words and fresh colours, through inspirations from Florence, and a train ride into the town centre, to visit the silk exhibition right under the Ferragamo shop.

There are a couple of “life hacks” which are helpful in order to better understand the Italian, or in my case, the Tuscan way of living. Firstly, you want to make sure that you switch your brain from “standby” to “online” before going out. Never, never ever leave your house without respecting this advice! Then you must understand that black is not necessarily black, and white is not necessarily white or, better, black is black and white is white, but then you have shades of natural white, grey and anthracite, which can lead to all sorts of interpretations.

Example: you want to go to Florence by train. Very convenient, because the Santa Maria Novella station is right in the middle of town, a stone’s throw from the Cathedral, which you definitely don’t want to miss and two stone´s throws from the Ponte Vecchio, another “must” when visiting Florence as a tourist. If you come from a Northern country, there is no, or at least little doubt about the efficiency of the public train system and your arrival (quite) on time.

Not so in Tuscany. You need to remember that because of maintenance works on the tracks last August, the hottest month of the year (and of course packed with tourists who would like to visit Florence by train) the whole route was closed, and only a mix of train and bus rides will get you to your destination with about a two-hour delay.

What has this got to do with my idea to visit the Ferragamo exhibition? My (in the meantime) well trained inner voice and my brain modus switched to “on” told me that eventually additional work on the tracks may have occurred, and been done in spring and not in summer.  Just to make sure that everything would go according to my plans, I wanted to check the official website of Trenitalia. There, after pages & pages of advertisements, at the very bottom of the page, the section “maintenance and work schedule” gave me more detailed information. One can only understand all this if you check the Italian version of the website.  Languages like English or German will only give you general information. In principle, people from Northern countries (where white is white and black is black) expect to be informed in time, so that they can get organized.

In Tuscany people see matters from another perspective. It´s up to you to get the information. It´s your responsibility if things don´t work out the way you planned. You could blame it on Trenitalia, but then again you can’t. In the end they, in fact, shared all the information you needed. Not knowing is not acceptable. Where´s the positive side of all this? Living in Tuscany makes you smarter and smarter day by day. No chance for your brain to get old! By the way – I went by car…

Visiting Florence is always an experience and a great pleasure, too. All year long the city is packed with people, but traditionally the tourism business is roughly divided into spring with families with children and students and autumn for elderly cultivated people or couples (usually without children).

Now is the moment for young carefree people in a good mood and ready for adventures of all kinds. It´s quite remarkable how the city lives year in, year out, with never ending streams of visitors. How does  it manage to absorb all this, so to speak, without changing its personality? It´s as if it was watching all the tourists on a stage from a theatre balcony seat, greeting, observing, listening, understanding, loving, forgiving, but when the night comes, and the pulsating life comes to a rest, it would shake itself thoroughly and rid itself of the hectic day, as the wind does with the dew drops on flowers.

Piazza di Santa Trinità is easy to reach. Not so the museum. It was, in fact, necessary to knock on the glass door in order to attract the attention of a shop assistant, who would open the locked door from the inside, and show me the way down to the museum, quite dark, but not unpleasant. The air on the contrary was heavy, and the smell strangely “old”. I must say that the whole exhibition did not correspond to my expectations at all, It could of course be that I didn´t understand the concept behind it. (My deep respect however for the effort made to bring the exhibition to life.)

On the contrary, it was very interesting to understand where Mrs. Fulvia Ferragamo got the  inspirations from, and how she transformed her ideas into unique silk accessories. The way she gave animals and flowers a soul is truly amazing.

On my way back home, I was wondering whether this exhibition really gave me the positive feeling I was searching for my first blog, but then I remembered how this extraordinary lady, by use of colours, fantasy, and emotion, gave life to a simple piece of white cloth. I may never reach her level, but she definitely aroused my ambitions…