Studio Azzurro decided to use shoes to tell a story at the International Shoe Museum in Vigevano. This story begins with the slipper, the most representative shoe model of the area. According to popular knowledge, this shoe was worn, or maybe even created, by Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of Milan and the wife of Ludovico il Moro, in the late fifteenth century. A shoe is not just something you wear: it can represent a world, an identity, or your belonging to a specific culture and area.

The Duchess’s Room is animated by images and tales fluctuating around a slipper which was custom-made on the original model. The brightness of the footage, whose texture recalls a dream, turns the slipper into the narrating voice and stages four main topics. The visitor will let him/herself drown in the emotional experience.

The topics explore fifteenth-century court life with the eyes of a Duchess and fashion creator, through the dreams and aspirations of the women of those times, between glamour and emancipation. Moreover, the installation explores artisan knowledge and the transmission of the secrets of handiwork, the past of places and the economic evolution of the Vigevano area.