Wanted in Rome
Maison Balestra Brings 60 Years of Roman Fashion to Ukraine on 2 June in an Exhibition Marking Italy's 80th Anniversary.On 2 June 2026, Italy's Republic Day, a fashion exhibition will open in Kyiv that is as much a diplomatic statement as it is a cultural event. Renato Balestra. I Codici dell'Alta Moda opens at the Parkovy Convention and Exhibition Center, organised by the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Kyiv to mark the 80th anniversary of the Italian Republic. The choice of date, place and subject is deliberate. Bringing an exhibition of Italian haute couture to a city that has lived under the shadow of war for four years is an affirmation that cultural exchange does not stop at the borders of conflict, and that beauty, craft and shared civilisation are precisely the things worth defending. The exhibition presents eleven garments from Maison Balestra, the Roman fashion house founded by Renato Balestra in 1959, tracing more than sixty years of history through archive creations and contemporary silhouettes. Among the pieces on display is a rare 1964 archive garment in the celebrated Blu Balestra, the distinctive shade of blue that became one of the house's defining signatures, alongside the iconic stella cometa, the comet-shaped design that remains one of Balestra's most recognisable creations. The exhibition has been curated by Sofia Bertolli Balestra, Renato Balestra's granddaughter, who has served as the Maison's Creative Director since 2022 and oversees its historic archive. The decision to entrust the project to her brings both curatorial rigour and personal continuity to an exhibition that draws on decades of family history as much as fashion history. Maison Balestra occupies a particular place in the story of Italian style. Founded in Rome at the height of the postwar Alta Moda boom, it dressed heads of state, royalty and cultural figures across six decades, developing a visual language rooted in architectural silhouette, exceptional fabric and a relationship with colour that made the house immediately recognisable on the international circuit. That language, now carried forward by the third generation of the family, is what travels to Kyiv. The organisers have been explicit about the intent behind the timing and the location. The exhibition, they write, is promoted with the desire to project toward a serene future in those territories of culture where the desire for a new beginning and rebirth is strongest. To bring this exhibition to Kyiv means affirming the vitality of cultural exchange and confidence in a shared tomorrow. On Italy's national day, in a city rebuilding itself, eleven dresses from a Roman archive will make that argument without words.
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