Borsalino Museum Opens Doors in Its Italian Hometown
HAT-STORY: Borsalino Foundation and the City of Alessandria teamed up for a new museum, which will value the heritage of the historic hatmaker.
The exhibition is set to open to visitors on Wednesday, while the official inauguration will take place a day earlier. The museum will showcase the history of the house starting from 1857 up until the present day.
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The museum is divided in three main sections: “Antica Casa,” a multimedia installation that traces the main stages in the history of Borsalino, exploring the link with the surrounding territory; “Manifattura,” dedicated to the hat production processes, the hat-making techniques of the artisans from Alessandria; and the “Galleria” section, which features a display of more than 2,000 hats, organized into eight narrative paths. These include, among others, Borsalino and Women, Divine Hats and Travel with Borsalino.
The space covers almost 6,700-square feet and includes a café and a gift shop.
Visitors will be able to see the collection of Borsalino hats donated by family heir Giovanna Usuelli Borsalino in 1994, with 200 new additional models collected by the Borsalino Foundation.
“This Museum preserves the memory of Borsalino and will inspire the future of the company. It has firm roots in Alessandria in the historic headquarters of Palazzo Borsalino, and was conceived to be an innovative space, able to dialogue with the world,” said Philippe Camperio, president of the Borsalino Foundation, in a statement.
Philippe Camperio is executive chairman of the Borsalino brand since 2018, when Haeres Equita, the private equity group he leads, won the auction set up by the label’s administrators through a deal valued at 6.4 million euros. Haeres Equita ended the troubled journey that started in December 2015 when it first took over the hatmaker, which had been hit by financial problems following the arrest of previous owner Marco Marenco for fraudulent bankruptcy and tax evasion related to a web of holdings.
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