Canali puts art under the surface: in Milan Perrone's glass sculptures close the Italian stop
"Under the Surface – Shaping the Unseen" reached the Istituto dei Ciechi in Milan with three glass sculptures by Diego Perrone beside cashmere and vicuña blazers: the display closes on 11 November, but the two outlets disagree on the Mumbai date.
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- "Under the Surface – Shaping the Unseen" places Canali's tailoring craft beside contemporary art: in Milan, at the Istituto dei Ciechi, the Italian chapter features three glass sculptures by Diego Perrone.
- It is the third of four stops, after Beijing on 23 October and New York on 4 November; it closes in Mumbai, while the Milan stop is open to the public only until 7 p.m. on 11 November, with free online booking.
- The two outlets disagree on the Mumbai date: Pambianconews writes 28 November, Il Sole 24 Ore writes 27. Canali's own page gives 28.
A man's jacket, to be made, goes through one number that describes it better than any adjective: two hundred tailoring steps. Canali puts them at the centre of this year's project, "Under the Surface – Shaping the Unseen", and places them beside something that usually lives in a different building: contemporary art. The Italian stop has reached the Istituto dei Ciechi in Milan, and it is the third of the four scheduled.
The mechanism is the same in every city: one original work, the visual story and one jacket. The artist works the material, the house explains how that same material becomes a garment, and the public sees the two processes side by side. After Beijing on 23 October with Lihuai Qian and New York on 4 November with Brian Rochefort, Milan hands over to Diego Perrone, and it is the chapter curated by Cloe Piccoli. Mumbai remains, with India's Thukral & Tagra.
Three glass sculptures beside the blazers
Perrone made three glass sculptures for the occasion, displayed according to Il Sole 24 Ore beside the cashmere and vicuña blazers from the autumn-winter 2026 collection. The comparison is not merely visual: the project's official page describes the works as vessels — "an archetype", it reads, "deeply rooted in the history of human culture" — in which colours, opacities and transparencies overlap during the pour and reveal themselves only at the end of the making. It is an elegant way of saying the same thing as the jacket: what counts is what you do not see while it is being made.
The technical parallel is spelled out on Canali's own site, which devotes eight moments to the two hundred steps: choosing the fabric, the cutting, the internal canvas that gives body without weight, and finally the pressing, which the brand calls "a true act of shaping". Out of that comes what Canali calls the jacket's memory: the ability to be folded, packed in a suitcase and to find its shape again. The glass work, for its part, comes out of lost-wax casting — the technique by which the sculpture is poured.
The dates that do not match
One point to hold on to, because it concerns anyone weighing a trip: the two outlets that covered the stop give two different dates for Mumbai. Pambianconews writes that the project "will close in Mumbai on 28 November"; Il Sole 24 Ore writes that the last stop is "in Mumbai, on the 27th". The project's official page gives 28 / 11. On the 28 November date we follow Canali and Pambianconews, which agree on this point. Il Sole 24 Ore's 27 November is recorded beside it: the divergence is declared, not quietly dropped.
One detail, however, is confirmed by both outlets and matters to readers tonight: the Milan stop is open to the public until 7 p.m. on 11 November, with free online booking. Anyone arriving later finds closed doors, not a ticket.
What is there and what is not
A useful clarification: the Under the Surface jacket is for sale, but only in selected boutiques, as the brand's site specifies. The travelling project and the garment are two distinct things: entry to the stops is by free booking, the jacket is a product in store. It is not an exhibition with a ticket office, and it is not a campaign with free access to some generic good.
The project carries the patronage of Altagamma, the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and the Municipality of Milan, as reported by Pambianconews. No judgement is passed on the works: what can be said is what they tell and how they are made.
If the "exhibition" side of fashion interests you, the network has also covered the Rai and Netflix series with Tata Carolina Benvenga and Mara Sattei's cancelled tour.