How did fashion plates circulate? Milan’s Bertarelli collection

A fashion image once travelled folded inside a magazine, carried through the post or bound into a seasonal sales catalogue. Before looking at the dress it depicts, consider that journey. Who drew it, who printed it, and how did it reach someone choosing what to wear? Milan’s Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli offers a particularly rewarding place to begin those questions.

This is a story about fashion’s printed infrastructure: skilled makers, publishers, retailers and readers. It complements our guide to the Galleria and modern Milan by following the paper that could carry a shop’s promise far beyond its windows.

Why begin with Bertarelli?

The collection’s official history records Achille Bertarelli’s donation to Milan in 1925 and the institution’s establishment in 1927. His interests extended beyond prestigious art prints to advertisements, visiting cards, postcards and fashion plates. The resulting collection, housed at the Castello Sforzesco, preserves material made for many different purposes.

That breadth matters. A fashionable figure might appear in a magazine, an advertisement or a catalogue offering goods for sale. Those settings are not interchangeable. Start by identifying the kind of publication rather than treating every elegant printed figure as evidence of the same business or audience.

Follow the work behind one sheet

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s research on fashion illustrators describes drawings translated into engravings, printed in batches and often coloured individually before publication. The finished page therefore depended on several kinds of labour. The person designing a garment, the artist drawing it and the printmaker reproducing the drawing could be different people.

The museum’s cataloguing also identifies work by the sisters Héloïse Leloir, Anaïs Toudouze and Laure Noël, who worked under their married names. Their professional contributions challenge a fashion history populated only by celebrated designers. On your own research notes, leave separate spaces for artist, engraver, publication and date; a missing credit should remain a question rather than acquire an invented name.

Notice how images crossed borders

The National Portrait Gallery’s introduction explains that French plates circulated in British publications, sometimes through imported impressions and sometimes through copying. Descriptions accompanied the figures, and an outfit could recur in later issues as an image moved between markets. This evidence concerns that documented French–British circulation; it does not establish the route taken by every Milanese print.

For a useful comparison, record the publication city, issue date, caption and any maker’s signature. Two similar figures may prompt a research question about copying or reuse, but resemblance alone cannot prove a shared printing plate. Preserve the whole page when studying an authorized digital reproduction: trimming away its margins can remove exactly the information needed to trace its journey.

Find Milan’s mail-order connection

The Rinascente Archives’ illustrated history provides a local example using material held by Bertarelli. It documents the Bocconi brothers’ seasonal Album delle Novità catalogues, sent beyond Milan to promote merchandise and support orders by correspondence. Fashion figures appeared alongside descriptions of such details as cut, cloth, colour choices and price.

The archive reproduces an 1883 spring–summer album and later nineteenth-century issues. Look at how a page makes a selection manageable: a full outfit can establish an overall proposition while smaller product illustrations clarify what is being offered. The intended purchase is part of the document’s function. For a different encounter with material objects, our Palazzo Morando guide explains another Milan collection without assuming these printed holdings are displayed there.

Plan research access separately from sightseeing

Bertarelli’s current consultation guidance requires an appointment and confirmation. A request should explain the research subject, supply known shelfmarks if available and offer two possible dates, alongside the requested contact details. The page specifies age and registration conditions, a normal daily document limit and additional requirements for certain rare material. Read those rules and confirm the works you want before arranging travel around them.

A castle visit does not itself reserve a place in the study room or guarantee fashion prints will be on exhibition. If consultation is unsuitable, explore the institutional digital material first and choose an ordinary museum visit for your afternoon. Our Milan neighbourhood transport guide can help keep the confirmed appointment, lunch and the next stop comfortably separated.

When comparing design and culture experiences, check the named venues and inclusions. A fashion walk need not include archival research. Whether you arrange specialist consultation or simply spend an hour with a digitized catalogue, following the page from workshop to reader reveals a fashion network that the garment alone cannot show.

Sources & further reading

• Castello Sforzesco — History of the Achille Bertarelli Print Collection
• Victoria and Albert Museum — The art of fashion plates: three pioneering women
• National Portrait Gallery — Fashion Plates introduction
• Rinascente Archives — Il disegno è di moda
• Castello Sforzesco — Bertarelli consultation hours and contacts