IV.

ITALIAN HAUTE COUTURE

IV.1. FIRST ATTEMPTS FOR EMANCIPATION The textile sector played a leading role during the Italian industrial revolution and the great economic and social importance of this sector fostered the creation of a kind of fashion that did not depend on France. Fascism hindered the importation of French clothes too cause it was not in compliance with its nationalist policy. Given that Italy had the raw materials to produce itself silk, hemp and linen, but not iuta, wool and cotton, the regime pushed the production of artificial fabrics such as rayon and cisalfa. Italian Cinema undergoes a strict censorship too, that had imposed the use of outfits of national production. Fascism also promotes a cultural battle to impose the traditional model of the woman as mother and perfect wife able to give birth to sons of the Motherland, compared to the transgressive model of the skinny and neuter garonne. It was only after WWII that Italian haute couture tailors started emancipating from the French leading model and standards. On a cultural level, what influenced the most the development of an independent Italian fashion was the richness of the Italian national art patrimony that raised the awareness of people towards aesthetics, as well as the strong power of Catholicism, that in churches has always included art and social rituality, unlike protestant religion that used to be very strict. Last but not least, the typical variety of Italian climate and landscapes, its people and their habits and customs, the cohabitation of the old and the new triggered a matching of colors and flavors as well as the use of different materials etc without ever running the risk of being too extravagant or excessive. The triumph of Haute Couture would not have been possible without the strong competitiveness in the quality-price relation. In fact, low costs of handcrafting allowed it to impose prices on the final goods that were 50% cheaper than the French counterpart. In addition, Italians differed from the French for a wide offer of sporty and leisure time activitys clothes that immediately caught the attention of American women. IV.2. ROME AND ITS DOLCE VITA At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, Rome becomes the new protagonist of Italian fashion especially thanks to the collective imagination of via Veneto and its Dolce Vita. Once again, the role played by the cinema and Cinecitt was fundamental, bringing to the Eternal City a good part of Hollywood stars that started discovering Italian tailors. The fame of

the sisters Fontana, in fact, was due to their style characterized by a Romantic taste dating back to the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the XIX century.

Picture 12 A traditional silhouette characterized Italian fashion of the 50s, although Italian couturiers specialized in what they were gifted and what they had long studied and practiced: laces, crochets, fabric production. The society felt the need to forget the disasters of the war and the collective imagination was reassured by maternal figures such as Gina Lollobrigida, Sofia Loren, the so-called well-endowed women or Maggiorate. But these actresses used to wear haute couture dresses in private and during the film they used to dress up as the average Italian woman, humble, in accordance with the role they played. Italian women couldnt afford haute couture so they started a sort of auto production and imitation of these dresses, a determinant factor for the spread of cheap clothing offered by big stores like Upim (founded in 1919), and Standa (1931), Max Mara and the textile financial Group were the first introducing tailored clothes in stardardized sizes.