From corsets that restricted women’s bodies to design that challenged social and gender conventions, ABITO traces more than a century of Italian change through fashion and design, making Singapore the first international stop for a story of culture, creativity and evolution.

Following its debut at Salone del Mobile.Milano earlier this year, ABITO has left Italy for the first time, and its first destination is Singapore.

Now on view at the National Gallery Singapore through October 17, the exhibition marks the first international presentation of a project promoted by Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and curated by Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba of Palomba Serafini Associati. Singapore is the first stop in an international journey through Italy’s diplomatic and cultural network.

Its arrival comes against the backdrop of a growing relationship between Italy and Singapore. Singapore is Italy’s largest export market in ASEAN, with bilateral merchandise trade reaching approximately US$5 billion (€4.5 billion) in 2024. Italian exports to Singapore surpassed US$3.6 billion (€3.2 billion), up 14.3% year on year, spanning everything from machinery and electronics to chemicals, fashion, food and design. For Italy, Singapore has increasingly become both a market in its own right and a gateway to Southeast Asia.

But ABITO brings another dimension to that relationship. Rather than presenting Italian design simply as an export, the exhibition uses it to tell the story of Italy itself, tracing how more than a century of social change can be read through the things women wore, used and lived with.

A chair can become a statement about modernity, a sign of authority or a sign of equality; a dress, a declaration of independence. A room can reveal as much about a society as a political speech. This is the premise of ABITO. The exhibition spans more than a century of Italian fashion and design, exploring the objects, people and values that shaped and reflected social change.

At first glance, Gaetano Pesce’s UP, designed in 1969, looks like an invitation to sink into comfort. The voluptuous armchair features bulbous forms inspired by the silhouettes of ancient fertility goddesses. But it comes with a round ottoman attached by a long cord, a reference to a prisoner’s ball and chain and a metaphor for the condition of women.

Nearly five decades later, Pesce reflected on the meaning behind the design in a 2017 interview with Architectural Digest. “It’s an image of a prisoner,” he said. “Women suffer because of the prejudice of men. The chair was supposed to talk about this problem.”

By the late twentieth century, women had seemingly escaped the corset. But, as Ludovica Serafini, Curator of ABITO, points out, liberation from one form of restraint did not necessarily bring freedom.

“Women seemed to free themselves from the corset, which was so constricting that they would sometimes even faint,” she says. “It looked as though they had gained freedom. But the restraints had become invisible, the responsibilities imposed by society and family could be just as binding.” Yet the provocative creation soon took on a life of its own beyond Pesce’s original feminist message. This avant-garde design captivated Salvador Dalí and can be spotted in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.

Each object in the exhibition tells a story beyond its appearance. A garment, chair or lamp becomes a record of the social world that produced it. The exhibition brings fashion together with Italian design, inviting you to see what people wore and how they lived as more than expressions of taste. These objects also record how lives, particularly women’s lives, were changing.

For Dante Brandi, Italy’s Ambassador to Singapore and Brunei, ABITO speaks to the cultural dimension of the relationship between the two countries, and to the role fashion and design continue to play in how Italy presents itself to the world.

“I have found myself many times in the position of saying that Italy is not just food, fashion and furniture. It is much more than that,” Brandi says. “But it is also true that fashion and design matter a lot to Italy. They are two very important sectors for our economy, quintessential expressions of our culture and heritage.”

ABITO, he argues, tells an Italian story while revealing something more universal.

“The exhibition will take you on a journey through the decades in Italy, but this is a story that has been repeated in every country. You will see how the way women dress and the way we furnish our homes reflect the evolution of our society, and how women have been empowered by fashion and design throughout the decades.”

The exhibition unfolds chronologically. It pairs garments from the Quinto-Tinarelli Collection, a private historical archive spanning from the mid-19th century to the present, with Italian furniture and objects that remain in production today. Ten photographs by Roberto Palomba capture key moments of this evolution. They form the exhibition’s backdrop and connect garments with furnishings from the same historical periods.

Palomba and Serafini have been wary of allowing ABITO to curdle into nostalgia. “There is, inevitably, a great deal of love for our country in ABITO,” they have said. “But it is not nostalgic love. It is love for an Italy that continues to evolve.”

That evolution is also what makes Singapore a fitting place for ABITO to begin its international journey. The exhibition arrives not simply as a retrospective of Italian creativity, but as part of a contemporary relationship between two outward-looking economies in which design, technology, trade and culture increasingly intersect. The programming extends the conversation beyond the exhibition itself. Walkthroughs and conversations will bring together institutional, creative and industry voices.

Coinciding with Singapore’s racing week, ABITO will also mark the first Asian premiere of the Italian documentary Formula Italia: Genius Beyond the Track. It explores the creativity, technological expertise and human ingenuity behind Italy’s motorsport legacy. After the screening, an exclusive conversation moderated by Vogue Singapore will focus on resilience, leadership and the pursuit of excellence.

In that sense, ABITO’s arrival in Singapore is about more than bringing Italian design abroad. It offers a chance to understand the society behind “Made in Italy”, while underscoring why Singapore has become an increasingly important place for Italian culture, commerce and ideas to meet Asia.

ABITO is on view at the National Gallery Singapore until 17 October 2026, with complimentary admission.