A Living Archive of Cinema, Ready for a Traveling Exhibition

Step into almost any beloved costume drama and, chances are, you've already met Tirelli Trappetti — you just didn't know it. For more than sixty years, this Rome workshop has quietly built some of cinema's most unforgettable images. Tirelli Trappetti has collaborated with some of the world's most celebrated directors, costume designers, actors and production companies. What's left of all that work is staggering: over 500,000 garments, all preserved in the atelier's own archive in Italy. It's less a warehouse than a museum nobody's built yet.

It's cinema history. It's fashion history. It's Italian craftsmanship at a scale nobody else can claim. And almost none of it has ever been seen in the United States — until now.

The project brings some of these costumes out of the archive and into a carefully conceived exhibition —where garments are presented not simply as objects, but as characters, stories and moments from the history of cinema and fashion.

Faces You'll Recognize

Open any of these costumes and there's a face people already know standing in it. To name just a few, Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and Gangs of New York. Kate Winslet alongside him. Angelina Jolie as Maleficent and, more recently, as Maria Callas. Emma Stone in Cruella and Poor Things. Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jared Leto, and Salma Hayek in House of Gucci. Timothée Chalamet in Wonka. Ralph Fiennes across The English Patient and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Keira Knightley and Jude Law in Anna Karenina. Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, and Russell Crowe in Les Misérables. Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland. Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt in Into the Woods. Cate Blanchett in Cinderella. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Jodie Comer in The Last Duel. Penélope Cruz in Ferrari. Kenneth Branagh and Gal Gadot in Death on the Nile. Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci in Conclave.

On television, the reach is just as wide: Game of Thrones with Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, and Peter Dinklage; The Crown with Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and Imelda Staunton; Bridgerton with Nicola Coughlan and Regé-Jean Page; Peaky Blinders with Cillian Murphy; The Young Pope with Jude Law and John Malkovich; The Gilded Age with Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon.

And then the classics that built the atelier's name in the first place: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale in Il Gattopardo. Jane Fonda in Barbarella. Robert De Niro in Novecento and The Mission, with Gérard Depardieu and Jeremy Irons alongside him. Donald Sutherland in Casanova. F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce in Amadeus. Sean Connery in Il Nome della Rosa. Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis in The Age of Innocence.

These are not costumes inspired by films. They are the original costumes created for the films themselves—made by master tailors, cutters, embroiderers and artisans who understand that historical detail, silhouette, fabric and craftsmanship can transform a character and an entire world.