Italian fashion and 'made in Italy'




Book cover Uni-look 'Lui, Lei' (He-She), 1971, L'Uomo Vogue

Italiana- Italy through the lens of fashion 1971-2001' is an exhibition on Italian fashion, curated by Maria Luisa Frisa and Stefano Tonchi, currently shown at Palazzo Reale, Milan.  Its opening coincided with the start of Milan Fashion Week on 21st February and the exhibition will continue until 6th May 2018.  I am not quite sure whether it is envisaged as a touring exhibition, it was not clear from the information given, it would be great if it were. I was in Milan last week and went to see it;  I even bought the book that goes with it (not a catalogue as such), edited by Frisa, Tonchi and Monti.  It is bulky, being hardback only, and as I was travelling on EasyJet without Speedy Boarding, I had to use my ingenuity to carry it back as it would not fit into my 'only-one-allowed -on-board'  bag.
Italiana  is an important exhibition, for reasons that will be clear as you read on. It complements and  develops another exhibition, also curated by Frisa and Tonchi, Bellissima. Italy and High Fashion 1945-1968 which was shown at MAXXI (Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo)  in Rome, from December 2014 to May 2015.  I did not see 'Bellissima' (and very much regret it) but in 2014 I visited  a competing exhibition in London  The Glamour of Italian Fashion at the V&A, now touring.  I even wrote an enthusiastic blog post about it - in hindsight I wish I had taken more care and time over it.
Italiana and The Glamour are at variance, belying a different ideological approach. The V&A exhibition is all about exploring the sartorial glamour of Italy, somewhat overdoing it. Italian style is generally perceived as very glamorous outside Italy but in fact, as a reviewer noted in  Corriere della Sera, glamour is something one would be better advised to associate with French fashion rather than  the  'made in Italy', whose hallmark is elegant style and design.

Maurizio Cattelan, Il Bel Paese, 1994, wool carpet
Il Bel Paese is Italy (the beautiful country) but this is the iconic image of a very well known Italian cheese, by Galbani, called 'Formaggio Bel Paese'.

Fashion exhibitions are still rather unusual in Italy, unlike the UK and the US, where the scholarly study of fashion has thrived for some years, generating a range of curatorial projects. Thus this exhibition at Palazzo Reale is attracting a lot of attention in Italy and outside Italy as it brings together fashion, art and design, an approach that is still rather novel in the Italian context. With a thematic display rather than a chronological one, Italiana  attempts to give a clear picture of what the 'made in Italy' really was about.  It highlights the peculiar function of the stilista, a term totally untranslatable as it refers to a role of mediation between design and lifestyle that is unknown in other fashion systems and which constituted the backbone of the 'made in Italy'.
Even Sonnet Stanfill, curator of the V&A The Glamour in the catalogue of the exhibition (a traditional catalogue with a list of objects on display and augmented with essays, unlike the book of  Italiana, which does not list the exhibits)  leaves the term stilista in the original Italian. The V&A catalogue of The Glamour is still available. It is a true must-have, as it contextualises the exhibition, through a range of stimulating essays penned by international scholars of fashion, including Frisa.  Without it one would come away enveloped in glamour and lacking true understanding , like I did when I visited, as I skipped buying the catalogue there and then seized by a penny pinching urge, only to realise later I really had to read it - thank god for Amazon.

Antonio Marras

Despite its dazzling display and curatorial deftness The Glamour of Italian Fashion overlooked to clarify the economic rationale of the 'Hollywood on the Tiber' which marks an important moment in the birth of Italian fashion - Cinecitta' was cheaper, that's why Hollywood films were made in Rome in the 1950s.  Nor does it really explain in depth the nexus of design and industry at the root of the 'made in Italy' and why Milan was its epicentre.
Italiana acts as a corrector, presenting a more nuanced narrative, with more than tenuous links to the world of art and film - the full title of the exhibition, Italy seen  through (the lens of) fashion pays homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini's  The earth seen from the moon (1967).   Each room  of the wing of Palazzo Reale which houses the exhibition  explores a range of interconnected ideas, emphasising the process of democratization of fashion and its  'glocal' reality. Whereas The Glamour ended with some wishy-washy statements made by designers and stilisti about the future of Italian fashion, Italiana focuses on the iconic fashion objects of the 'made in Italy' and leaves the viewer to ponder on the new relationships arising from the globalisation of fashion - 'made in Italy' actually made in China - and the increased mobility of Italian fashion creative directors,  a new role replacing that of stilista, who was  inextricably linked with  the 'made in Italy' -  think here of Maria Grazia Chiuri, currently at the helm of Dior, in Paris.

Fashion and design  on display

As Frisa and Tonchi comment in their opening essay in the book, aptly titled Useful Beauty , the 'made in Italy' label is often thrown about without really questioning its relevance today, in our contemporary world. Its narrative needs updating. The history of Italian fashion, write the two curators, is open to a partial understanding, founded on "an underestimation of the value of the cultural actions to be carried out  at the political level to construct a mythology of Italian fashion". Glamour is indeed part of that mythology.
I think that anyone who is really interested in fashion and Italian fashion in particular should visit this exhibition and definitely get hold of the book - pricey, I know, but worth it.  And here is my grievance: a list of exhibits would have been really useful.  Next time, perhaps?

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