First look at Moncler’s blockbuster new exhibition, which turns Milan Central Station into an immersive public gallery

Moncler is well-versed in the power of spectacle: in 2022, to celebrate 70 years in business, it transformed Milan’s Duomo square into a vast public stage, complete with 1,952 white-clad performers – a reference to the brand’s year of founding – while earlier this year the brand hosted a high-altitude runway show on the snow-covered slopes of St Moritz. Other blockbuster happenings have seen intricate set pieces – from foam-filled dancefloors to gleaming Space Odyssey-style corridors – constructed in Milan and Paris to house collections from Moncler Genius, an ongoing project which has featured collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Rick Owens and Adidas, among several others.

Moncler ’An Invitation to Dream’ at Milan Central Station

Opening this week in Milan, Moncler’s latest project sees the brand take over another Milanese landmark, the monolithic Central Station, which was first opened in 1931 and remains a buzzing transport hub today. Titled ‘An Invitation to Dream’, Moncler has collaborated with Jefferson Hack, the co-founder and CEO of Dazed Media, on a new exhibition which transforms the station’s vast interior into what the brand promises to be ‘one of the world’s largest public galleries’.

Uniting with London-based photographer Jack Davison, the exhibition centres around a series of portraits and accompanying short film of an eclectic cast of international creatives, gathered from Hack’s inner circle and spanning numerous disciplines, from music and art to food. There is Deepak Chopra, the Indian-American author and alternative health advocate, artist Daniel Arsham, playwright Jeremy O Harris, musician Rina Sawayama and Ruth Rogers, the chef behind London’s River Café restaurant. Other names include food artist and designer Laila Gohar, poet, artist and filmmaker Julianknxx, ballet dancer Francesca Hayward, architect Sumayya Vally, make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench and model Zaya. Each is captured in Davison’s intimate, painterly style.

’The curated community represent some of the finest creative visionaries across culture who dare to dream for us,’ explains Hack of the line-up. 'They are today’s reality-shapers and they were invited to participate as their work carries with it new hopes and possibilities. It’s the deeply transformative aspects in their work and practice that makes them essential artists of our time and essential for us to bring into this project.’

Indeed, Remo Ruffini – the brand’s CEO and chairman, who is also photographed by Davison for the project – says that the inspiration behind the exhibition is ‘dreaming’, something which he believes has been at the heart of Moncler since it was founded in the French village of Monestier-de-Clermont in 1952. Then, the dream was to outfit those scaling the surrounding Alpine peaks, now, Ruffini says, it is about dreaming of ‘what is possible, and how we can inspire and be inspired by others around the world... always aiming to not only do new, but to do better.’

In the exhibition itself, Davison’s photographs will be blown up into enormous billboards in the station’s main hall – a space which sees over 300,000 visitors daily – while all the screens usually reserved for advertising will be taken over by video portraits of the various participants. The idea, following in the tradition of Hack’s ’hacking’ of international public spaces, is to feel like you are stepping into a Moncler ‘dreamscape'. Meanwhile, a series of hand-painted lithographic prints by Davison will also be on display in a more traditional gallery-like setting, an attempt to ground the project in a mood of intimacy, ’the idea of slowing down time, and conveying the humanity of the subject’.

Moncler’s ’An Invitation to Dream’ runs at Milan Central Station from 15 – 21 April 2024.

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