The guiding principle behind the initiative is as straightforward as it is evocative: to tell the story of a long-established and renowned Italian company by retracing all the concurrent shifts in fashion and costume history that have punctuated its journey. In short, to glimpse the whole in the fragment — that is, the major sociological turning points in Italy over the past 120 years through the flourishing activity of the entrepreneur from Perugia, Luisa Spagnoli (1877–1935), who, as is well known, before founding the eponymous fashion house, was the creator of the celebrated Bacio Perugina and the confectionery company behind it.

A multimedia narrative with period documents

Two world wars, the emergence and boom of so-called "made in Italy", the painstaking milestones of women's emancipation, and also a singular and richly varied soundtrack ranging from Giuseppe Verdi to Dizzy Gillespie, from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones. These are the ingredients of a long and intense tranche de vie that a virtual exhibition, directly accessible from the Luisa Spagnoli brand's website, allows visitors to explore through short films, audio-video features and period documents. The "journey" is divided into five distinct phases: 1900–1923 (years defined by the figure of the couturier); 1923–1943 (from femininity to austerity, with the geometrism of the post-war period); 1943–1960 (made in Italy, bon ton, pin-ups and the miniskirt); 1960–1986 (emancipation, workers' struggles and protests); 1986–present (luxury, revivals and so-called aspirational models).

From virtual to real: the memorabilia

Beyond the television drama that recently brought the founder's remarkable biography to a wide Italian audience, the maison Luisa Spagnoli entrusts the telling of its origins to the objects held, as a permanent collection, in the exhibition space located at the company's headquarters in Perugia. Here visitors can encounter a series of memorabilia, including the first comb used to groom and thus harvest the angora wool from rabbits (neither killed nor shorn) and the equally iconic red jacket with a peplum that the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton wore on several occasions.

A family business with forward-thinking characteristics

Although the business founded by Luisa Spagnoli was structured, from the very beginnings of Baci Perugina, as a family-run company — thanks first to the contribution of her husband Annibale, then of her sons Mario and Lino, through to the fourth generation represented by current chief executive officer Nicoletta Spagnoli — it distinguished itself from the outset by certain objectively and remarkably ahead-of-their-time traits. At a time that was far from favourable for the working conditions of the working class, when the concepts of benefits or company bonuses were far from established or widespread, Spagnoli made available to her employees a dedicated swimming pool, nurseries for their children, recreational activities and terraced houses. And above all, in the 1940s workers regularly received as a Christmas gift a supply — decidedly unusual for that era — of jumpers, stockings and wool to help them through the cold.