A Visit to La Pietra- Acton Collection

A Day at Villa La Pietra: The Acton Collection

As a visiting student at NYU, I was unaware that four different families once owned the Villa La Pietra, now formally known as NYU Florence Campus. Previous owners include, the Sassetti Family, the Capponi Family, and the Incondri Family.  The last owner of the Villa was the Acton family, who began ownership in 1904. Arthur Acton was a self-made man. Hortense Acton was American born and had a sense for French fashion. She had a desire to represent international couture.

For today’s site visit, we focused on the dress collection of Hortense Mitchell Acton, the wife of Arthur Acton. When we arrived on the top floor of the Villa, I was shocked to see dresses placed in boxes with loads of tissue paper. I soon learned that the tissue paper served to protect the clothing from acid decay and oils. Hortense’s son, Harold, created the dress collection in Villa La Pietra. He chose to remember his mother by specific fashion statements she once embodied. For example, a few of the dresses we saw today demonstrated Chinese calligraphy.

Two of the dresses, one green and one pink, had detailed embroidery and silhouette shapes. The details in these dresses are reminiscent of Chinese fashion, although French designer, Marie Callot, designed Acton’s dress collection. Another dress in the collection was a 1920’s flapper dress, with individual panels. The dress was solely made of celluloid sequins (some of the first plastic sequins ever used in fashion clothing).

Harold Acton studied in China for quite some time as a young adult. It may have been the fashion of his mother that shaped his personality and interest to study internationally. He grew up seeing his mother dressed in nothing but the best couture fashion of the 1900’s, having an interest in French fashion with a Chinese flare.

I found it interesting to analyze fashion from the perspective of the son’s personality, rather than from the individual wearing the clothing. It completely makes sense how the style of his mother could shape his idiosyncrasies. He grew accustomed to certain ideals and styles based off of the fashion his mother portrayed.

I am so happy I had the opportunity today to learn more about the Acton family and explore the fashion of the early 1900’s. The dress collection was drop dead gorgeous and I enjoyed thinking critically with Professor Paci about the relationship between fashion and personality portrayal.

That’s all for now! See you next week!