24 June 2025
A full hand of queens at Cinecittà Shows Off
The Studios in Via Tuscolana opens a display of original film costumes at the end of June, including those worn by Angelina Jolie to play Maria Callas in the biopic, by Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca in Diamonds and by Tecla Insolia, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Alma Noce in The Art of Joy.

Unique artists, sensitive entrepreneurs and youngsters who go against the grain. The new selection of original stage costumes at Cinecittà Shows Off focuses on women who transform their lives. Maria Callas played by Angelina Jolie, the sisters who run the Diamondstailoring shop with the faces of Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca, those who spring from Goliarda Sapienza’s pages to the screen with the features of Tecla Insolia, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Alma Noce: these are some of the costumes at the centre of the display at Cinecittà from June 27. It can be visited with a guided tour on Saturday mornings from July 5th.
A powerful non-verbal means of communication, clothing not only reveals social status and profession but helps to create a precise image of the wearer. For this reason, costumes play a fundamental part in the construction of a character and are a particularly essential focus when they are created to represent people who really existed.
It is no coincidence that Angelina Jolie admitted that the outfits created for her for Maria, the biopic directed by Pablo Larrain (produced by The Apartment, Fabula and Komplizen Film, distributed by 01) in which she literally became la divina Callas, were key in her approach to what she has, unhesitatingly, defined “the most challenging role I have ever faced“. Clear appreciation for the work of Massimo Cantini Parrini, who designed the costumes for the film: winner of 6 David di Donatello and twice nominated for an Academy Award, he is famous for meticulously reconstructing the past and present of the history of costume. For Jolie alone, Cantini Parrini designed over 200 sketches and created over 60 dresses which accurately evoked the innate refinement of the queen of opera. Three of the dresses were made by Sartoria Tirelli Trappetti and were created to precise references of outfits synonymous with Callas: an evening dress she owned with an ivory bodice and rhinestone and pearl studded full black skirt, plus two outfits from her theatrical repertoire that will particularly charm music lovers. A midnight-blue velvet costume from Tosca directed by Zeffirelli (1964), studded with jewels and with a fur-trimmed cape. The jewel encrusted paler blue velvet dress takes us instead to the setting of Ann Boleyn curated by Visconti in 1957.
Italy’s most watched film of 2024, and Ferzan Ozpetek’s greatest box office success, Diamonds (produced by GreenBoo Production, Faros Film, Vision Distribution, distributed by Vision Distribution) provides outfits (Sartoria Tirelli Trappetti) worn by the leads Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca, as Alberta and Gabriella Canova, owners of the costumiers at the heart of the story. For the older Alberta, costume designer Stefano Ciammitti created a sober wardrobe, underlining Ranieri’s character’s almost obsessive attention to detail, represented at Cinecittà Shows Off with a sophisticated black and white linen suit. Facing this is a representation of her sister, brought to the screen by Jasmine Trinca, whose heightened emotionality is underlined by soft cuts and colourful patterns. A light floral dress was designed for her. The challenge of Diamonds was not only to create accurate styles for a stellar female cast but also to think of the clothes as characters in the film: “Diamonds makes the costume a real character, which evolves and transforms over the course of the narrative, as if it had a life of its own“, said Ciammitti.
The monographic core of this selection curated by Barbara Goretti, director of Cinecittà Shows Off, with Piero Risani, Carolina Guarienti for ASC and Maria Rita Barbera, is based on another successful story. After a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, The Art of Joy, Valeria Golino’s miniseries – which brought Goliarda Sapienza’s novel of the same name to the small screen – won the favour of critics and audiences and several awards including 3 David di Donatello. Visitors to the Studios’ permanent exhibition will be able to fully experience the atmosphere of the series through the 5 dresses created by costume designer Maria Rita Barbera who, after extensive research into the period from 1908 to 1919, found the right balance between historical accuracy and creative freedom by mixing newly created dresses with authentic pieces, lace and antique fabrics.
There are three outfits worn by Tecla Insolia whose role as the lead character, Modesta Spataro, earned her the David for Best Actress at just 21 years old: the novice’s dress made in grey to stand out from the nuns’ black habits as a focus in the frame; the iridescent blue dress with coral buttons that marks the beginning of Modesta’s transformation, from a convent student to a young lady from a good family; and the red travel suit that closes the first part of the story.
For Alma Noce who plays Beatrice Brandiforti, known as Cavallina, Modesta’s friend and beloved, the costume designer chose a palette of soft colours, like the ivory and old rose of the dress on display that was inspired by the creations of Mariano Fortuny. “Modesta and Cavallina have the same measurements but completely different temperaments. One has a dark soul, the other is ethereal. Dressing them was like giving body to a mirror image, a character with two completely opposed individualities”. The damask dress with velvet inserts and chiffon features in a range of greens (on loan from Costumi d’Arte Peruzzi) designed for Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Princess Gaia Brandiforti is an example of bonafide, ante litteram power dressing. Bruni Tedeschi noted how wearing the corset contributed to physically building the austerity of her character, accompanying her movements. “My dress transmits a form of power, of haughtiness. The corset changes your posture and with it your way of thinking. With the corset you think from above”, she said.
The Art of Joy is produced by Sky Studios and HT Film with the support of the Regione Siciliana – Assessorato del Turismo, Sport e Spettacolo – Sicilia Film Commission and the Ministry of Culture General Directorate of Cinema and Audiovisual: the costumes on display are kindly provided by HT Film and Sky Studios. Cinecittà Shows Off extends special thanks to Viola Prestieri, Maria Rita Barbera and Martina Merlino.
The display closes with a delightful focus on Italian costume designers with two creations from Vittorio Nino Novarese, a multifaceted figure who graduated in architecture and a cultured, passionate scholar of military uniforms considered the first great craftsman of cinema who conquered Hollywood with his work on unforgettable blockbusters, such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra and Ken Hughes’ Cromwell which both won the Oscar for Best Costumes. With five Academy Award nominations plus a screenwriting career, Novarese also held the chair of History of Costume at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The rare and unique clothes on display here were worn by two exceptional actors – Rex Harrison and Anita Ekberg. There is the armour worn by Harrison as Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope, in Carol Reed’s The Agony and the Ecstasy: a piece of the highest craftsmanship with an embroidered wool doublet and breastplate, arms and helmet in worked metal. The dress was worn by Anita Ekberg to play Queen Zenobia of Palmyra in the historical drama Sign of the Gladiator directed by Guido Brignone, Riccardo Freda and a young, uncredited Michelangelo Antonioni. The splendid bodice, modelled on the diva’s sinuous forms, is displayed with a tunic and a cloak that have been especially recreated to offer visitors as faithful and detailed a reconstruction as possible. Both pieces come from Costumi d’Arte Peruzzi, a costumier which not only boasts one of the most interesting collections of historical costumes but has shared a friendship and collaboration with Vittorio Nino Novarese since the time of Ruggero Peruzzi, a passionate expert in historical clothing who appears as a collaborator in the opening credits of Reed’s film.
JEWELRY AND ACCESSORIES
Accompanying the selection of costumes is a range of unusual and eccentric headpieces in display cases at the entrance to Cinecittà Shows Off. They range from that made with a bicycle tire and inner tube by Stefano Ciammitti for Carla Signoris’s character in Diamonds (on loan from Sartoria Tirelli Trappetti) to the majestic Chinese body harness of Princess Turandot worn by Angelina Jolie in Maria, which covers the head, shoulders and décolleté with pearls and crystals, designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini. There is a jewel cap in gold mesh and snake appliqué designed by Milena Canonero for Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola, and three pieces of ultra-refined workmanship by Luciano Capozzi for the musical Juliet and Romeo by Timothy Scott Bogart yet to be released in Italy: two female headdresses, one with filigree gingko leaves, the other a crown with stones and pearls, created for Rebel Wilson and Donna Capuleti; and a man’s mask with plant elements. All the objects and scenic elements come from the global industry leader, Italian stage jewellers, Pikkio.
GUIDED TOURS (obligatory reservation at didattica@cinecitta.it)
JULY
Saturday 5 July at 11:30
Saturday 12 July at 11:30
Saturday 19 July at 11:30
Saturday 26 July at 11:30
AUGUST
Saturday 2 August at 11:30
Saturday 30 August at 11:30
SEPTEMBER
Saturday 6 September at 11:30
Saturday 20 September at 11:30