The exhibition, curated by Maria Giuseppina Monte, Giulia Innocentini and Luca Lo Sicco, is organised in collaboration with the Noel Shoe Museum in New York and The American University of Rome, and is sponsored by the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.
From 5 June to 13 September 2026, the Boncompagni Ludovisi House Museum, directed by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte and part of the Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo Institute – National Museums of the City of Rome, led by Luca Mercuri, will host the exhibition Vanessa Noel – Dream Shoes.
The exhibition offers a wide-ranging and evocative reflection on the shoe, understood not merely as a fashion accessory but as an authentic cultural artefact, capable of transcending eras, geographies and languages, embodying identities and creative visions.
Through the eyes of Vanessa Noel, an American designer and refined interpreter of ‘Made in Italy’ in the United States, the exhibition unfolds as a multi-layered narrative in which art, craftsmanship and memory engage in a continuous dialogue with the spaces of the Boncompagni Ludovisi House Museum.
The exhibition itinerary brings together a selection of the designer’s most emblematic creations—the culmination of a career spanning over forty years—with a series of historical footwear from the collection of the Noel Shoe Museum, an institution founded by Noel herself with the aim of preserving, studying and promoting the culture of footwear in its myriad historical, artistic and socio-cultural aspects. What emerges is a narrative in which the shoe reveals itself, in turn, as a symbol of authority and a representation of power, an instrument of emancipation and freedom, a testament to technical innovations and, at the same time, an object imbued with aesthetic, artistic and symbolic values.
In this dialogue between past and present, between historical document and artistic creation, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the profound significance of an apparently everyday object, which over the centuries has helped to define social roles, affiliations and collective imaginaries. “Tell me what shoes you wear, and I’ll tell you who you are” thus becomes not merely an evocative saying, but a lens through which to understand the relationship between the individual and their self-representation.
“Dream Shoes” also aims to highlight the career of Vanessa Noel as a leading figure in the promotion of Made in Italy and as the founder of the first shoe museum in the United States, emphasising her commitment to recognising footwear not merely for its historical and socio-cultural aspects but as a true art form.
The exhibition is aimed at a broad and diverse audience, with a particular focus on younger generations, offering an experience that combines knowledge and engagement, tradition and contemporary expression.
With this initiative, the Boncompagni Ludovisi House Museum reaffirms its mission to be a place for research and the promotion of the languages of fashion and the applied arts, providing a space for dialogue where the aesthetic dimension intertwines with the historical and cultural.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
Vanessa Noel – Dream Shoes
Curated by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte, Giulia Innocentini and Luca Lo Sicco
The exhibition is organised in collaboration with The American University of Rome and under the patronage of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion
Venue: Boncompagni Ludovisi House Museum, Via Boncompagni, 18, 00187 Rome
Contact details:
Telephone: +39 06 42824074
Email: dms-rm.museoboncompagni@cultura.gov.it
Website: https://direzionemuseiroma.cultura.gov.it/museo-boncompagni-ludovisi/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/CasaMuseoBoncompagniLudovisi/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/casamuseoboncompagniludovisi/
Admission:
Full price €6.00; Concessions €2.00; Free entry for those entitled by law.
The exhibition is included in the ticket for the House Museum.
Tickets for the House Museum can be purchased at the digital kiosk (POS-enabled) or at www.museiitaliani.it
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 9.00 am – 7.30 pm; last admission 6.30 pm. Closed on Mondays.
