Animate wearers as activators in the work of Cinzia Ruggeri (1942–2019)

This article investigates the significance of the dressed, mobile body (alias the animate wearer) in the work of Cinzia Ruggeri (1942–2019), asserting that the artist-designer’s methods of showcasing fashion were shaped by her strong interest in movement and corporeality. Informed by an interdisciplinary research approach that intersects embodiment theory with several subfields of fashion studies (viz. fashion film and photography practice, fashion performance studies, clothing and embodiment), I illustrate how Ruggeri rejected the model-mannequin’s treatment as a voiceless body-object, choosing instead to present her clients as expressive and emancipated body-subjects. My perception of this approach as trailblazing is supported by contextualizing the agency-less history of the displayed female body and demonstrated by discussing the role of embodiment and personalization in Ruggeri’s abiti-installazione (‘dress-installations’). Expanding upon Guerriero’s reading of this work as ‘a dissolve of the disciplines’, I explore how Ruggeri’s discipline-dissolving approach informed her distinct presentation of the wearer, citing key examples from her 1980s catwalk shows, showroom-happenings and costumed productions. In constituting the first extended contemporary study of Ruggeri to be developed by a non-Italian researcher – and published outside of her native Italy – this article underscores her potential as a subject of global scholarly interest.