Italy: Fashion, Style and National IdentityIn September 1942, Bellezza ran a piece entitled ‘Collections Prepared for
Strangers’ which used Italian topography as a metaphor to describe the
progress of Italian fashion.^7 The text encapsulates the ambitions of the regime:
When you climb a mountain, you can look back and see how far you’ve come.
Many people saw the path as un-climbable. They thought that real elegance could
only reach the Italian woman from across the Alps (France) or across the ocean
(the United States). Italy used to use foreign models, to copy or adapt to Italian
taste. To continue on this path would not have been useful to Italy’s economy.It was claimed that Italy was, instead, producing ‘refined and practical models
which are perfectly in tune with the new rhythm of life. Italian fashion has
achieved a prominent position in Europe, and will know in future how to
use this position.’
This claim to eminence was clearly misguided and overstated for propa-
ganda purposes and it is now clear that the whole operation was funda-
mentally ineffective. By the outbreak of war, there was no Italian fashion
industry, nor an independently innovative “Italian style” recognisable to the
international market, peasant-inspired or otherwise. Nonetheless, the
references to refinement, practicality and modern life are important indicators
of the future development of Italian style.
After the Second World War, France recaptured its reputation as the global
centre of elegance. Although the Paris couture industry experienced difficulties
when it reappeared immediately after the armistice, in 1947 the world’s eyes
were firmly refocused on Paris when Christian Dior launched his famous
“New Look”.^8 Dior’s opulent and formal style with its long full or pencil
skirts, narrow waists and rounded shoulders formed a stark contrast to the
box-jackets and short, straight skirts of the War and was eagerly accepted
by women in both Europe and America.
Most Italian dressmakers reverted happily to imitation of Paris style and
the “trickledown” nature of the dissemination of fashion in this period meant
that French fashion still led the whole of the Italian market. Analysis of the
middle-market Italian magazine Linea Italiana clearly illustrates this typical
Paris orientation in the late 1940s. There are articles on the latest Paris styles
in each issue, including coverage of the Paris collections. It is not unusual to
see Italian fashion integrated with the latest French couture styles, perhaps
in the hope that some of the prestige would rub off.^9 Moreover, some Italian-
7.Bellezza, September 1942, pages unnumbered.- See for example, Cawthorne, Nigel, The New Look: the Dior Revolution, London:
Hamlyn, 1996. - See for example Linea Italiana, Autumn 1948 and Linea Italiana, Winter 1948.