SINGAPORE – In 1919, Italian luxury furniture maker Poltrona Frau released a scandalous armchair. In place of the standard brooding gentleman, the lounging star of its poster image was a woman, smoking – her lit cigarette and louche posture transgressive for an era when women were banned from puffing in public. “This chair was a bang, a crash, a revolution,” says Italian architect and designer Roberto Palomba, one of two curators of Abito, a new exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore. Running from Oct 3 to 17, Abito, backed by Italy’s ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation, chronicles the social ascent of women through a century of Italian fashion and furniture. The show takes its 71-piece assemblage of chairs and clothes from the corseted 1890s to the androgynous present, showcasing the representative items of each 10- to 20-year period chronologically.   https://www.straitstimes.com/life/style/made-in-italy-100-years-of-italian-furniture-and-fashion-on-show-at-national-gallery   (ICE SINGAPORE)

Fonte notizia: The Straits Times, 1 October 2026