Fashion in Venice: 5 places you should know and visit

Behind every dress there is a story and the history of fashion in Venice has ancient origins. An elegant city, a splendid setting for refined clothes and fine fabrics, Venetian fashion for centuries has represented the mirror of the power of the Serenissima. If wearing a dress also means expressing your personality, Venice has been able to express excellence.

Its artisan workers, its history of costume, Venice is a symbolic and real catwalk for clothes, designed by great stylists or worn with ease by the many VIPs who have passed through it and by anyone who has known how to mingle with its charm. Fashion loves Venice, if you are in the lagoon for a day, 3 days or more, we suggest you consider the Venice Pass, the only card that allows access to various attractions, including those you will find described in this article and also discounts and agreements in various business.

Venice is synonymous with beauty and elegance, and every time you set foot in the Lagoon you are infected by the irrepressible desire to be part of it. Let yourself be seduced by the charm of fashion in Venice, and discover with us the 5 places you should know and visit in Venice and its surroundings if you love fashion.

Start from Palazzo Mocenigo, Museum of fabric, costume and perfume, where you will learn about the evolution of the history of clothing and textiles, and then explore Palazzo Fortuny, an evocative Gothic building that bears the name of Mariano Fortuny, stylist, set designer and multifaceted artist, who transformed this place into an atelier, where he created the pleated silk dress that made him famous worldwide.

Don’t miss the interesting relationship between fashion, art and sustainability through the work Like a mantle for fireflies by Olimpia Biasi, a tapestry made from reclaimed fabrics for an initiative by McArthurGlen, specifically for the Designer Outlet in Noventa di Piave. The project dates back to spring 2024, but you can still admire this captivating piece on a day trip to charming Treviso, where it is displayed at the Teatro del Monaco—followed by a stop at the outlet to enjoy quality shopping in true Italian style.

Finally, we will stop at Villa Foscarini, between Padua and Venice, where the unusual and unique Footwear museum, before concluding our tour in the Burano Lace Museum, where around 200 laces are on display, including rare and precious examples.

The first stop on our itinerary to discover the 5 places to visit in Venice if you love fashion is Palazzo Mocenigo, the Museum of fabric, costume and perfume, which perfectly summarizes the history of fashion in Venice.

Palazzo Mocenigo is an elegant stately palace, located in the Santa Croce district. The building was inhabited for centuries by the Mocenigo family, one of the richest and most illustrious of the Venetian nobility, which gave the city no fewer than seven Doges. It was transformed into a museum and opened to the public in 1985, but even today, thanks to the maintenance of the spaces and some furnishings, it retains the charm and atmosphere of the house of the past.

The museum itinerary winds through 20 rooms where you will find 1300 figures, wearing clothes and accessories for a period ranging from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. In the rooms you will have the opportunity to retrace the evolution of fashion, textiles and clothing that have made Venice one of the most fashionable cities of all time.

In 2013 the Museum enriched its collection with a section dedicated to cosmetics and perfume. The visit ends with the olfactory stations, a sensory experience that lets you immerse yourself in the precious fragrances that inspired all the perfumes of the Serenissima. Reaching Palazzo Mocenigo by public transport in Venice is very easy: just take the vaporetto and get off at the Stae stop, where you'll find the museum at number 1992, Calle Tentor, Salizada di San Stae.

Stylist, set designer, multifaceted and virtuous artist, Mariano Fortuny, attracted by the charm of Venice, purchased the palace towards the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, he began restoring the building, transforming it into a private residence and a space for artistic and scenographic experimentation. It was here that he conceived and built the first model of the famous theatrical device called the Cupola, a lighting and technical system that revolutionized the theatrical stage.

In the palace, he also set up a small textile workshop that, over time, became first an Atelier and later a factory for the creation and printing of silk and velvet garments. It was here that Delphos, the pleated silk dress that made him famous worldwide, was born.

Today, visiting Palazzo Fortuny is an essential stop for fashion in Venice, and one of the must-see museums in the Serenissima: upon entering, you'll find a unique place, wherethe presence of the artist and his wife Henriette, his muse, is permeable. You will find antiques, paintings and clothes from the Fortuny collection scattered everywhere. The last room, the study of Mariano, is a corner room illuminated by 3 Gothic windows, where there are 3 paintings by Fortuny, including a self-portrait. Palazzo Fortuny is in the San Marco district not far from Palazzo Mocenigo: to get there, you can take Vaporetto Line 1 and get off at the Sant'Angelo stop.

Fashion is beauty, history, culture, art and ethics and commitment; especially in the contemporary era it is essential to know and know how to choose what you wear. Olimpia Biasi's work Like a cloak for fireflies makes us reflect on the fairer use of resources, it is an impressive tapestry made with various and colorful scraps of discarded clothes, which the artist wove by hand on wire mesh.

The project is part of the initiatives promoted by the Noventa di Piave Designer Outlet to support the circular economy, starting within its own business. The fabric strips used in the artwork were collected through the Recycle your fashion program, a reuse and recycling initiative: visitors can bring their used clothing to the outlet’s guest services. In return, by registering for the McArthurGlen Club, they receive a 10% discount to use in participating stores.

The installation artwork by Olimpia Biasi, created in 2024, was donated by McArthurGlen Noventa di Piave to the Fondazione Teatro Stabile del Veneto and the Municipality of Treviso, where it’s permanently housed at the Teatro Del Monaco. Located just over half an hour from Venice, Treviso, the artist’s hometown, is an ideal destination for a cultural day trip, boasting a rich artistic heritage with museums, frescoed churches, and venues dedicated to modern and contemporary art.

Along the way, it’s worth stopping at the Noventa di Piave Designer Outlet, which is easily accessible from Venice even by bus, train, or the innovative private and shared pick-up service (8 seats, departing from Piazzale Roma in Venice). Here you can enjoy luxury shopping that combines convenience and quality, between elegant VIP Lounges and areas designed for children, as well as enjoy a day trip from Venice to the Lower Piave Valley lands, an Italian Camargue, made of very long dunes with reeds and pink flamingos where you can enjoy a regenerative walk in unspoiled nature.

The fourth stage of our journey to discover fashion in Venice and its surroundings takes you in Stra, one of the most fashionable places in Veneto. We are between Padua and Venice, in Villa Foscarini, a 17th century building that tells the story of high-end footwear from 1947 to today. The Brenta Riviera is famous to produce the most spectacular and haute-couture shoes in the world and the Footwear Museum houses an original collection commissioned by Rossimoda, one of the companies that has marked the history of the footwear sector.

Behind every shoe lies an important piece of fashion history. At the Footwear Museum you will see ancient and ethnic shoes to move on to the fashionable footwear of 1960s Paris including the shoes worn by Catherine Deneuve in the film Belle de jour.

In the collection there are also the models designed by Roger Vivier for the shoes worn by Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her coronation. The collection reaches up to the present day with designer and trendy shoes signed by stylists who have made history. The entrance to the Museum is on Stra, Via Doge Pisani, just over half an hour's drive from Venice.

With our last stop we return to Venice, more precisely to the enchanting island of Burano, a quiet and peaceful colorful island that can be reached from Venice with one of the many vaporettos that whiz through the waters of the lagoon. Time in Burano seems to have stopped, in the small streets you will still see elderly and less elderly ladies’ intent on the art of lace using the ancient bobbin technique (tool used to create embroidery), if you stop discreetly to observe you will see people coming out from their fairy hands magnificent embroidery and laces.

The Lace Museum is in the historic Burano lace school in Piazza Galuppi, with over two hundred rare and precious examples from the school's rich collection on display. They offer a complete overview of the historical and artistic events of Venetian and lagoon lace, from its origins to the present day and testify to the evolution of the manufacturing technique.

The Lace Museum is also included in the Venice Pass attractions, which once again we suggest you consider. Our itinerary of the 5 places you should know in Venice and its surroundings if you love fashion ends with the Lace Museum.