Architecture, like fashion, is a physical, tangible expression of a historical, social and cultural context that is represented by the spaces we live in as by the clothes we wear.

At times critical and disdainful towards fashion, architecture has often been fascinated by it: while Le Corbusier manifested a well-masked hostility, stating that in architecture style had no more significance than feathers on a lady’s hat, “pretty but not really important”, Adolf Loos always liked the subject of clothing. For architects, “the accent is still on the combination interior/garment,” – emphasised Alessandro Mendini in a Domus Moda special in 1985 – one – as in the designs by Michael Graves, Kazuhide Takahama, Gae Aulenti, Clino Castelli and Antonia Astori– in which the shop is seen as the ideal occasion for trying out the architect’s interests on a short-lived project. A second in which the rigorous organisation of the furnishing components seems to correspond to an interpretation of the interior as a neutral container of interchangeable typologies.”