The world feels increasingly divided. In 2025, we were reminded of a simple yet essential truth: creativity is born through encounter. It is through dialogue and shared work that ideas take shape, change people and, little by little, shape the cities we live in. We must build beauty, not destroy it.
This is where the purpose of Fondazione ITS takes root: creating encounters and spaces where creativity can be truly lived, carefully nurtured, and passed on over time. Open places meant to be crossed and experienced, where people, visions, and skills meet and are transformed into shared value.
2025 began by bringing creativity beyond the museum walls and, at the same time, deeper into its rooms. A photographic exhibition in the streets of Trieste and the Borderless exhibition, featuring ten of the most promising designers of the year, wove together territory, museum, and new generations of creatives.
In spring, the Borderless designers arrived in Friuli Venezia Giulia for the Residency and the final event of ITS Contest 2025. Together with the press and partners who supported them — including OTB, Luxottica, and Swatch — we shared a moment of genuine exchange, uniting everyone around a simple but vital idea: supporting talent, the moment it is born.
ITS Arcademy – Museum of Art in Fashion continues to evolve as a space that erases boundaries. With Fashionlands – Clothes Beyond Borders, curators Olivier Saillard and Emanuele Coccia, alongside the photographic eye of Gabriele Rosati, opened a reflection on how fashion moves across worlds, cultures, and everyday gestures, between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
That same energy travelled far beyond Trieste, carrying ITS Arcademy and ITS Contest first to Japan for Expo Osaka, and later to the Triennale di Milano for the 24th International Exhibition.
Meanwhile, the museum remains a place lived in every day by students, teachers, and families, through guided visits and deliberately “messy” creative workshops designed to spark curiosity and present fashion as an accessible cultural language. Thanks to the support of Fondazione CRTrieste and Le Fondazioni Casali, these experiences remained free and open to local schools.
In collaboration with Cinecittà, through PNRR funding from the Italian Ministry of Culture, and with regional partners FVG Film Commission – PromoTurismo FVG, Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia – Il Rossetti, and Fondazione Teatro Lirico G. Verdi, we contributed to the growth of a new generation of professionals specialising in costume and accessories design for cinema, television, and live performance.
Behind the scenes, a quiet yet essential effort continued to protect our Collection. With the support of our partner Generali, new works were acquired, stabilised, and documented, ensuring that the heritage of ITS Contest will continue to inspire future generations.
Looking ahead to 2026, the work of the ten new talents of ITS Contest 2026 will be at the heart of the exhibition Rise and Shine, reminding us that creativity should not be seen as a privilege, but as a necessity to be nurtured and defended every day.
We are also preparing EXPOSURE – When the World Is Watching You, from Harry Styles to Lady Gaga, curated by stylist Tom Eerebout: an unprecedented perspective on styling, celebrity image-making, and the power of visual identity, marking the beginning of a new season of events dedicated to the dialogue between creativity, image, and identity.
To everyone who walked through the museum, worked with us, supported us, and accompanied us along the way: thank you. Thanks to our public and private sponsors, large and small; to Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia and PromoTurismo FVG for their constant support; to the City of Trieste, home to all of this; and to the entire ITS Family.
Your support and encouragement make our mission possible: to protect creativity, make it accessible, and continue imagining the future. Together.