IED CONTINUES WITH ITS DEVELOPMENT PLAN AND EXPANDS ITS SPACE IN FLORENCE
At Palazzo Pucci N6 the new spaces of IED Firenze: the extension to the family’s private residence iconic Made in Italy location where Emilio Pucci opened his workshops and tailor’s shops
Florence, 11 January 2023 – The Istituto Europeo di Design continues with its development plan and has chosen Palazzo Pucci N6 for the expansion of the IED Firenze premises. The Palazzo is an integral part of the city’s history and a symbol in the world of Italian fashion excellence. It was here in 1947 that Marquis Emilio Pucci decided to establish his headquarters with the workshops and tailor’s shops to create his brand. Palazzo Pucci, the family’s private residence since the 15th century, is now the headquarters of the Emilio Pucci Heritage Hub, a universe of passion, creativity, tradition and innovation, and Italian spirit. In March 2023, the new IED Firenze spaces will be inaugurated here on the first floor, allowing young designers to study and design in classrooms and laboratories that embody history and cultural heritage, Made in Italy, creativity and craftsmanship.
“Our main focus is on Italian students in order to provide them with the tools they will need to pursue a successful future. However, at the same time, we strive to increase the number of international students, who have been four times as numerous in Florence in recent years. IED wants to intercept the growing number of students coming to study in Europe from Asia and the Americas”, says Francesco Gori, CEO of the IED Group.
The primary objective of the IED Group remains to continue to meet the increasingly demanding expectations of Italian students and to create new conditions to accommodate significant international flows. Florence is an open-air museum, a city where the crossover between art and fashion is ever more alive, and being able to carry out part of one’s training in a historical palace, still inhabited by the Pucci family, offers a unique perspective. It provides the opportunity to observe the past in order to design the future, in a society that sets no limits. Today’s students are citizens of the contemporary era and their choices anticipate the direction that will lead to social changes and urban evolution.
“We are happy to welcome IED students to Palazzo Pucci N6 in the very rooms that once housed the company that my father founded. In fact, I believe that these spaces have an intrinsic value as he himself used to say “you can only create something beautiful in here”, says Laudomia Pucci, President of Emilio Pucci Heritage.
“The architectural beauty of Palazzo Pucci is obvious, but this palace in the heart of Florence is also a historical and cult location for Italian and international fashion. Studying fashion design in the very place where Emilio Pucci created his garments will be very exciting for our students. Fashion, like education, needs to rediscover its experiential component and once again thrill”, adds Danilo Venturi, Director of IED Firenze.
IED Firenze’s development plan also includes the decision to call the big names of international fashion to Florence to accompany students on their studies and help them realise their potential within broader horizons, sharing their skills and experience with them. The occasion is provided by the launch of the new Fashion Master Courses which, for the first time, envisage the involvement of foreign professionals in the role of Mentor and cover different sectors: Danielle Kwateng, Executive Editor of Teen Vogue in New York and founder of The Volta River; Elizabeth Bowring, Director of Fashion Shows at Worth Global Style Network-WGSN in London; Theo Grassl, Executive board member of the Fashion Council and lecturer at the Universities of Berlin and Munich; the entrepreneur, stylist, influencer and actress Margherita Maccapani Missoni; Andrea Selvi, International Business Development & Buying Manager at Yoox Net-A-Porter Group.
PALAZZO PUCCI
Palazzo Pucci has been the private residence of the Pucci family since the 15th century. Later, starting in 1525, illustrious architects and artists carried out extensions and architectural interventions. Today, all the rooms are decorated with important frescoes, paintings and sculptures including those by Bartolomeo Ammannati, Giuseppe Bezzuoli and George Augustus Wallis. After the end of the Second World War, in 1947 Marquis Emilio Pucci, still an officer in the Italian air force, created his own fashion label inspired by sportswear. He established his headquarters in the family palace and decided to use the ground floor rooms for workshops and tailoring, while on the first floor he restored the large gallery, the baroque ballroom and the relevant salons to present his collections, receive clients and the press and open his Florence boutique. He immediately realised that the Palace was the perfect tool to create contrast with the modernity of his creations. Daughter Laudomia joined her father in 1985. Palazzo Pucci N6 would be the brand’s headquarters until 2017.
In 2018, the Emilio Pucci Heritage Hub was created in Palazzo Pucci N6 to preserve the archives and rich heritage left by the Marquis. It is not easy to circumscribe the Emilio Pucci Heritage universe in one definition: a world of passion, creativity, tradition and innovation, and Italianness. It is an experience in which the archive space becomes an expression of the brand’s codes and the creative interpretation of Laudomia Pucci – President of Emilio Pucci Heritage – and the team that works there. Our intention is to avoid creating a museum of the past, and to translate history into the present, its aesthetics providing a fun and ironic spirit, where colours, prints, clothes, accessories, drawings, photographs, videos, etc. are the basis for a third way of using archives as opposed to historical decorations such as 17th-century paintings and 19th-century frescoes. Today, we present ourselves as an immersive experience for all-round hospitality for insiders, fans and onlookers of all cultures and generations. Those interested in learning more about the history of the brand can visit emiliopucciheritage.com, a free narrative of the founder’s life, and embark on a virtual tour of Palazzo Pucci N6.
In the post-Covid-19 pandemic period, interpreting the demand for a more restricted use of hospitality, Laudomia Pucci decided to create a contemporary living space on the ground floor of the Palazzo. An exclusive environment with a unique style that combines fashion and heritage, art and design, an ideal Lounge for enjoying a special day, for receiving guests privately, for meetings, events, or for having lunch or dinner with partners, friends or family. In short, Palazzo Pucci N6 bears witness to an extraordinary history of family, art and Italian fashion. “It is unique” and as such, it is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for all those who cross its threshold, physically or virtually.
PR Studio Maddalena Torricelli