Lupo Lanzara and the new campus of the Costume & Fashion Academy

A beautiful new campus in Rome alongside the historic one in Via del Rondinella

Accademia Costume & Moda has always been a special place for Rome: vibrant, dynamic and alert to change, it has trained leading talent in fashion, communication and business management for the fashion sector for decades.

A place where fashion has always been about industry and culture. This year sees the opening of a stunning new campus in Rome, alongside the academy’s original home in Via della Rondinella: not so much a change, as a further evolution in its history. We discuss it with the Accademia’s president, Lupo Lanzara.

For the new campus you chose the lively neighbourhood of Esquilino; can you explain the reasons for that decision?

With the inauguration of the new campus in the former Magazzini allo Statuto in the heart of Esquilino, Accademia Costume & Moda is renewing and strengthening its educational and societal mission. The choice of this historic, multicultural district is not an accident: Esquilino represents the perfect meeting point for our educational vision and our need for authentic links with the local area. It’s a place where cultural diversity, artisanship and tradition blend naturally with the community approach that’s so important to us.

Two campuses in Rome and another in Milan. What are the features of each, and how are they different?

The vision underlying our three campuses is respect for the genius loci of the two cities we call home, Rome and Milan. The new second Roman campus in Esquilino will be used for our three-year courses (undergraduate programmes), while the original Via della Rondinella campus – a stone’s throw from Castel Sant’Angelo – is the setting for our Masters courses. The new campus will focus on courses linked with creativity and making: Costume and Fashion, Tailoring, Pattern Cutting and Prototyping for Fashion and Costume, but also Fashion Management, Fashion Product System, Fashion Editor, Styling & Communication. The old campus will deliver the Masters courses, including Alta Moda Fashion Design, Accessories Design, The Art and Craft of the Costume Designer, Fabrics Innovation Design and the new Master in Menswear Design, in partnership with the Brioni label. In Milan – a city with a vocation for industry and management – we offer training programmes in line with this identity.

The story of the Accademia is the story of a family. How do you intend to strengthen this important legacy going forward?

Our story starts with an enlightened vision, that of our grandmother Rosana Pistolese, a historian, journalist and fashion designer, who founded the Accademia in order to bring costume and fashion together with a profoundly cultural approach. Over the years, our mother Fiamma Lanzara preserved and added to this legacy, establishing ever-closer relations between the Accademia, industry and the cultural world. The Fiamma Lanzara Library, which was named after her in 2024, boasts a collection of more than 6,000 monographic volumes and over 15,000 magazines, an extraordinary archive covering more than 180 years of fashion journalism. Today, I and my brother Furio, the CEO of ACM, want to continue educating intelligent and creative professionals, while remaining true to our distinctive founding values: fashion as culture, custom and humanity.

The new campus was the setting for the 2025 edition of the BA Graduate Fashion

Show ACM Talents. For the first time, the show in the very place the talent is shaped; can you tell us about this special event?

The new campus was a natural and symbolic choice as the venue for the 2025 Fashion Show; a way of celebrating our arrival in Esquilino. The event is much more than a simple show; it’s a bridge between training and industry, evidenced by an employment rate post-qualification of 93%. It’s an opportunity for our students to be seen and to exchange ideas.

A strongly international and visionary approach at at difficult time for the fashion industry. How do you see the system evolving, and what makes you feel optimistic?

We’re optimistic because we believe in the power of education and culture as tools for transformation. At the Accademia we’re training the next generation of professionals to interpret and lead change. Our approach is international and multidisciplinary, in constant dialogue with the world of production and creativity. The challenge lies in being active protagonists of an evolution that sees fashion not only as an economic system, but as cultural, social and human expression.

What lessons did you learn from Fiamma that you carry forward in your work?

Fiamma taught us three fundamental values: strength, resilience and commitment to the community. Her example reminds us that an educational institution is not merely a place of learning, but a living community that can generate meaning, vision and beauty. This enthusiasm is what we continue to seek every day.