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Dressed: The History of Fashion
Fashion Under Fascism, an interview with Dr. Eugenia Paulicelli (Dressed Classic)
01:09:50
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Lifelock Representative
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Podcast Narrator/Announcer
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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Podcast Host/Co-host
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April
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
No problem.
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Podcast Narrator/Announcer
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Lifelock Representative
filing taxes can be confusing. So we have live experts on hand who can help answer any questions you may have. Questions like can I claim my SUV is my home office? If I answer work emails in my car? If I adopted 12 dogs this year, can I list them as dependents and am I doing this right or am I doing this very, very wrong? Our experts have the answers to those questions and many others. Tax let's get them over with.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
Please enjoy one of our favorite episodes from the Dressed archive of over 500 plus shows.
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The history of Fashion is a production of dress media.
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April
With over 8 billion people in the
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Podcast Host/Co-host
world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
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Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are friends, fashion historians and your
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hosts, Cassie Zachary and April Callahan
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April
Cass. Today, I am thrilled that we get to talk about one of my favorite things in dress history, and that is the intersection of fashion and extreme politics or extreme political events. And in particular, some of my interests lie in how fashion reacts during periods of war. And this is something that first piqued my interest about 20 years ago or so when I was reading that book on the French Revolution, which is called the Gilded Youth of Thermidor, which was written by a French scholar, Francois Gendron. And in this he discusses the subculture of the Jeunesse d', Ore, or the Gilded Youth. And many of the participants in this sort of subcultural movement were the Encuyable and the Merbeilleuse, which is of course a subculture that sprung up in the wake of the Revolution. And this subculture is in part defined by dress. So this is a very much an aha moment for me. And it was the very first time that had made this connection that fashion could be wielded as a political tool. And it would be several years in the future before I would really discover the field of fashion history as an academic pursuit but, but indeed, the seed and interest in the connection between fashion and politics had already been planted years prior.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
Yeah.
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And dress listeners, we've already done a two part episode on fashion during the French Revolution, so head all the way back to season one, I believe, to check those out, if you haven't already. We've also talked about the intersections of fashion and war during World War I. And I think we did a minisode last season on fashion and politics. So, you know, these two seemingly opposite, you know, entities are in fact very intimately intertwined. Today we go back in time to a period of history to look at fashion and dress during the first two decades of the 20th century. So the period between World War I and World War II in Italy. And we are so pleased that Dr. Eugenia Policielli joins us today to discuss her book, Fashion under beyond the black shirt.
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April
Dr. Palacelli is a professor of Italian Comparative Literature and Women's Studies at both Queens College and the Graduate center of the City of New York, where she also is the founder and coordinator of the concentration in Fashion studies for the CUNY graduate program.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
Dr. Policelli, thank you so much for joining us today.
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April
Dr. Policilli, thank you so much for joining us today on Duress to discuss your really amazing book, Fashion under beyond the Black Shirt. So before we delve into some of these fashion aspects of our discussion today, I'm hoping that you might give some context for our listeners about broadly speaking, what exactly is fascism?
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Thank you, April, for inviting me to this conversation. I'm delighted to be here with you. So to respond to your question, fascism was an ideology, authoritarian ideology, and a movement first started in Italy in 1915. So the war certainly was an important component, had a great impact on the formation of this fascist combat. This was, you know, the beginning. And then in 1919, Mussolini, who was of course the head of Fascism, became the Duce. So he founded the National Fascist Party. So started in Italy, but then it spread all over Europe and in the United States, actually. We need to remember that. So it was authoritarian, became a totalitarian. Now regime dispotted, nationalism, racism, imperialism. So these were kind of key words, but we can delve into it while we discuss the multifaceted and complexity of fascism. In order to contextualize this, we need to understand also the situation in Italy at the time, because in the Beginning of the 20th century, Italy went through great transformations in terms of modernization, industrial, but also at the same time a huge immigration, the great period from second half of 19th century. In the beginning, many Italians came to the United States States. Actually one of the countries of the immigration. There was a lot of poverty in the south. Big divide between north and south. So the north was very industrialized. Italy was a country that was unified as a nation state. Only in 1860, started the process of unification. There were unrest from workers and unions movement in the feminist, feminist movement also. Italy had a lot of these rallies, political unrest, strikes, especially in the north, industrialized north. So then we also had at the same time, think of 1909, the first manifesto of Futurism. So we had, you know, the beginning of the 20th century was quite amazing in terms of contrast, political unrest. The beginning of self awareness from the workers, factory councils. You know, we have the factory in Milan, you know, the fiat, the Olivetti. This factory is very important. The textile industry in the Como area and so forth. A lot of artisans. So. But there was all this political, you know, so Mussolini and the fascists, they were violent, okay, against, you know, the left, against communism. Think that in 1917, the Soviet, you know, we had the first communist revolution. So it was really a time very complex and important, I think, not only for Italy, but world history, of course. And so Mussolini and his group using violence and violence was always part of fascism in the right. They burned workers unions, place books. You know, there was a lot of all this very violent. And also the idea of war, permanent war was an important principle of fascism that stayed for the regime. You know, the regime started. So Mussolini was then elected after the master in Rome, 1922. And the regime started until 1943. Mussolini was first voted in the parliament. In the beginning, the parliament in Italy, we had different parties, even the communists and the Socialists, the Republicans. There were many different parties. But in 1924, there was a drastic change in then really became a despotic regime, totalitarian. Because one socialist representative, Giacomo Matteotti, in the parliament denounced Mussolini and the fascist, the National Fascist Party to have rigged the election. So he was then kidnapped. Mussolini ordered his kidnapping and was killed, found a few months later killed. And then all the anti fascist, important anti fascists were either killed or put in prisons. And from then on, all political parties were not legal anymore. So only one party. And that's what fascism is about, is one party authoritarian. Beijing.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
Yeah.
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April
Oh, my gosh. Thank you. That was an amazing description for any of our listeners who might not be familiar with fascism in general or just that very precise, you know, couple decades of time in Italy. So we are of course here today to talk about fashion in the intersection of fascism and, you know, in your book that you say, I'm quoting you. My focus here is to show how fashion and the Renaissance became a scientia habitus as well as a political and state affair via the sumptuary laws and literature on appearance, clothes, and fashion in a way that was entirely similar to how the Fascist regime dedicated great energy to regulating the way Italians express themselves in dress in both private and public spheres. So that's a huge span of time, and I'm. I'm hoping that you might unpack that a little bit for us first in terms of the Renaissance. So. So how was the fashion being used as a political tool at that time?
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Thank you for your question. In fact, at the time when I was writing my book and was doing my research on the book, I was also doing my research in the Renaissance. And as you know, later on, I published a book precisely on that topic in 2014. So while I was trying to figure out the relationship between, you know, fashion and politics and the regulation of dress, not only as a personal care or concern, but also how the state, how the political institutions, religious institutions emanated these laws, I was fascinated by the fact. I said, okay, this is really the demonstration that fashion is very important. It's crucial to study, because it's not just the frivolous aspect that, you know, we like to change dress or we like a particular color. You know, the way fashion was conceived was kind of looked down in the academic field. So for me, that was a tangible result of how fashion was more than that. Right. So. Because historically, in the Renaissance, and I'm talking about, of course, you know, if we talk, if we think of the history of Italian fashion, we have to go back to the Middle Ages and. And the atheisms, you know, all these letters, the guilds, you know, these people that they had this incredible know how. But it was in the Renaissance century, law started already in the Middle Ages because preachers and the religions, because people were fascinated. You know, people like to dress, but also there was this trade, you know, trade was developing not only in Italy, but of course, outside, because fashion is always local and global, not only today, always has been. So if we think of the Silk Road, if we think of this textile coming from the Mediterranean and the know how the people also working in different cities in Italy. And of course, so. So it's very dynamic. So fashion, at some point become a language, is textualized in the laws in which, you know, they said, okay, women cannot expose part of their skin. Right. Question of modesty, because of a way of controlling femininity. In dress. But it was more than dress, it was behavior. So think of also the way women had to cover their head. This was common to any religions. Jews, Muslim, Christianism. But what happened was then this was starting to be manipulated by individuals, by women themselves were created agent of their own image. And so in fashion, feed the kind of agency. So it was not just the aesthetic, which is already something that is important. But it was more than that, was the politics of style. And this was of course, seen as a dangerous side. Why? Because, of course, we had the aristocracy. We had to think in terms of plants. And then in this period, because of trade, banking, global exchanges, Many families became very prominent, not just the aristocracy. So which means that sumptuary laws sometimes wanted to control. Aimed at controlling and discipline the social body. So, for example, there were law in the Renaissance. In some of the material that I've been. I was consulting, regulating, for example, the way artisans could dress. For example, they couldn't use velvet. Because velvet was one of the most extreme expensive fabric. That was destined to the kings and queens and princes. So then the idea that an artisan could appear as a king or as a prince was dangerous. All the gold rings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that in conjunction with the technological revolution in the Renaissance, A geographical extension, exploration, the inventing of the printing press, the production of books and widening the public. Because we have history and fashion. So that was to me, another pattern and important to understand. If we study the long history of fashion, to see that at that time, fashion become an issue in the sumptery laws in many different cities in Italy. But also the fact that people didn't follow the law and pay the fines. The city of Venice, what they did, they emanated the laws. But Venice, de Serenissima, had a central role not only in politics, but also in the production of wares. You know, the Muranoblastis, the silk industry, et cetera. And so Venice wanted to show off when kings and ambassadors came to the city. And they suspended the sumptuary loans. Because they wanted to show their best. So this is possibility, this politics, right before magic. So this dynamic and company to that the fashion became textualized in books, books and conduct and behavior. So fashion for the book of the courtier in Baldassare Castiglione, published in 1520. It was a political concern, was not just the way you appear is a political statement in court. And so he established the rules of dressing in black. Or having a certain simplicity, certain elegant, understated elegance. Strezatura you will call it, which still resonates today. So the link that I found that during Fascism, in the project that Mussolini and the fascists wanted to, first of all, nationalize fashion, because there was no institution regulating fashion as it was in Paris since the 19th century, there was already an institution, didn't exist in Italy. So they had hundreds of incredible artisans, the textile, but all disorganized. So there was no, not an entity. And this was a debate already started in the pre Fascism. In fact, the people involved were sympathizer of fascism, but also antifascist and socialists like Rosa Ginoni. I talked to her. Maybe we can talk to her about her later, who was also another person who believed that fashion is central to issues of women, feminism and state. So fascists emanated a series of laws to control the production of fashion, Italian fashion, because they wanted to control the whole production from sketching the textile industry, the organization of the shows, et cetera. So the link. And we can talk, I guess, a little bit more in details about this in your other questions. But so the link that I found, it was quite interesting. The fact that fashion was a state affair was not just something, was an industry, was an industry able to project an image of the country, an identity. And so very much was, you know, this kind of connection that to me. And also, because that's another thing, the Renaissance in Italian history has been also very important from the point of view of the construction of Italian identity or national identity. You know, a period, the glorious period, but also a time of crisis. Sometimes, you know, we think of political treaties like Machiavelli, the prince, or Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo. There's a lot of. So then that period was always seen as being. Even in the post war, again, as a moment in which, you know, Italians excelled, were able to. Because there was this kind of lack of trust in themselves. Because at that time, Italian fashion was not on the map. And these people sometimes, you know, forget about this part. It was not on the map. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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April
And that's actually something that I kind of wanted to chat with you about is, you know, obviously at this time, and we've talked about this so many times on Dressed before, I'm not even gonna go there, because our regular listeners already know this. But, you know, France was really this global arbiter of style at the time, and they were really kind of pushing fashion forward. So I guess my question to you is, you know, what kind of was the relationship between French and Italian fashion before Mulusulini's rise To power. And did that change with the rise of his regime and this emphasis on establishing power.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
National dress relationship with France, between France and Italy are very complex and complicated, but always there somewhere, you know, even before we have to go back first, you know.
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April
Okay, hundreds of years.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Yeah, I'm curious, but 19th century, for example, it's important because, you know, in the 19th century we. We have Italian magazines. So as you know, also in this period, from the 18th century onwards, they started, you know, magazines in which women wrote. And so that's a particular phenomenon, but not very well known because always, you know, you talk about France and England, et cetera. But the Italian history is quite interesting from that respect because it has a lot of women who participated and actually found Dame, then Margarita and other magazines in which they again, they were posing the question of fashion and politics, national identity and freedom from France, because there was always this kind of, you know, kind of imitation competition because France and Paris established itself as the capital of fashion and modernity and so forth. And so they try. It was really a moment of reflection to see how this kind of relationship and how an independent way of thinking and on fashion existed. And there are examples, in fact, that in the Italian manufacturing industry at the time, in terms of, you know, the production of certain kind of velvet, certain kind of manufacturing in the south, and also the patriotic, you know, to link fashion with patriotic attire, very, very important. And then later on, I just moved, you know, a little bit in the beginning of the 20th century. So we have two important things that I would like for us to consider and also that they will be very much in relation to fascism later. So one is the experimentation, the important avant garde movement of futurists, because the futurism was very, very, very central in this renovating. They wanted to reconstruct the universe, right? The art, everything, not the sculpture, industrial design and so forth. And indeed, fashion was part of this as well, because they wrote manifestos. Giacomo Bala wrote actually a manifesto of the anti neutral suit because they were for the war, because there was all this debate of being for World War I or not. So they were for the war as the fascist and other groups. So. But the manifesto is quite fascinating because it's not just, yes, the idea of the war, but it's also this reconceptualization of. Of the male suit and masculinity using colors. And the other one I would like to mention, there are many examples here, but Nesto Mikaela was to me a
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April
genius and worked with Vionnet for many, many years.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Exactly in fact, he worked in. He was the only one who actually worked in the fashion industry. The other one, Barlas produce his dress and textile. He did it. And some of his creations are now in the Laura Biagiotti foundation and archive in Rome. They've been bought. And also he created in Rome his studio where with his. With his daughters, they. They crafted, you know, it was fantastic. You know, some of them are so modern, female and male. The other one, the other, I said he designed the logo of Madeleine Dionnet and then some sketches, for sure. You know, he kind of was there, but he did something that to me was genial. The tuta, first of all, was different from the constructivist in Russia because he saw it as not just for work. It was this notion of simplicity, of unisex, of elegance. Because he put the belt with a
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April
bow and the little sandals he pairs with it. That is like that little detail that just.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
You see. Yeah, but also he had this. The tuta as a concept is a zero waste. That's what it is. If you see the. You know, he did so the. The concept was very, very innovative, that very people couldn't understand. And really, you know, was too parallel man. But also there is another thing. The color of the shirt, because tall ordered particular in Florence, because he didn't want the rigid, you know, masculine. The color. So just as in his genius is fantastic, because he wanted the soft one, because he wanted a different kind of masculinity, a different kind of. So. So this very contradictory, if you wish, from the kind of virility, if you think of fascism. But they were sympathizing, you know, of fascism. So it's very complex. So then the futurist. And then we have, of course, De Pero and so many other artists that they did work for Vogue also. He designed some covers for Vogue America because he came also to New York. So international cosmopolitan, very avant garde and connected to the European avant garde, French surrealism and so forth. On the other hand, we had other projects like the project of Rosa Ginoni, who was a seamstress, started from zero, really. She was very poor in Milano, et cetera. I wrote a book about her and she really was the one who started to think of this made in Italy, you know, Italian being proud of their own rules, advocating for an Italian fashion, because she was in France and in Paris and she saw how they worked and she said, we need to understand and study our roots, our. In fact, she also thought there were no schools in Italy at that time, you know, that teaches really fashion or Costume design. There was no schools, so she did it for workers in Milan in the evening. And she was fascinating, was absolutely genial what she did in putting together material from the art. Because where fashion was part, the manifestation of the arts was not divorced by so then all that. But she thought of an Italian fashion, she thought of an Italian institution. So in a way, Mussolini used her own idea to create. But Maginoni was focusing especially on feminine, the female body, the liberation of women workers. Also she was a socialist and she was also under the regime, you know, under the control they. They. She was a pacifist, which did not
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April
fly well, I'm sure with Mussolini.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Not. I found material, you know, in the archive that the police, you know, and everything. So she was not. But she was. These are the two kind of major lines, because she wants to use, you know, the artisanal, the craftsmanship, the Italian tradition, the Renaissance. In fact, she got a first print in 1906. And the exhibition, the Universal Exhibition in Milan, where she presented the dress, the Primavera dress, inspired from a Botticelli, you know, Spring, beautiful painting. And the dress is in the Galleria del Costume in Florence and is absolutely a masterpiece. So that. But then she was also modern because she was thinking of women being able to move freely in the modern life, you know, go on a bike or going to so department stores wedding. Italy at that time Milan was center. So there were all these things were already there in the pre fascist and also in the debate of nationalism, if you wish, you know, and how fashion had to be part of this project of nation building, clearly as that. And she says it very clearly in her writings and how feminism, you know, she even said feminism is part of fashion. So she was writing this in the beginning of the 20th century.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
And.
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April
And they. And they kind of took her ideas, those seeds that she had already planted, and just ran with it.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Absolutely, yes,
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April
Cass.
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April
One of the things I found incredibly fascinating about your book was this official government push to eliminate French fashion terms from the Italian language, which was all part of that kind of like nationalization of fashion. Can you tell us a little bit about Cesare Menos? Am I saying that right? Meno.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Cesare Melano.
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April
Cesare Melano.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Thank you.
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April
Can you tell us a little bit about his creation of an Italian dictionary of fashion? I had never heard of this. And I was like, whoa.
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Podcast Host/Co-host
Yes.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Again, this project of nationalization of fashion went in many different directions. It was also in the direction that the language of fashion was French, because also the terminology, I would say the language of fashion in general, meaning perceiving Paris as the capital, but also in terms of lexicons, you know, words defining textile and also model, you know, you know, all these words, they were French. You know, they didn't use it. So. So the idea, this went parallel key. The process of nationalization of Italian language, also during Fascism, eliminating the dialect. So they wanted to, you know, standardize. And so they gave the task to this journalist, Cesaremiano, to compile a dictionary and commentary.
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April
No small task.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
No small task, I mean, but. And when I was doing my research, I found it mentioned here and there, and then when I went to read it carefully, these 400 pages with different entries, I found them very fascinating text, because you could really see there the ideology and the way also, in a way, what Roland Barthes had done with his work in the fashion system and the many articles he wrote on the formation of a discourse, right of fashion. It's important text, because then you understand also that language is materialized. It's important because fashion without that discourse doesn't fly. So you can have a beautiful design, but if you don't present it and don't you communicate it in a way that has a certain narrative, if you wish, it stays there almost in this inertia, Barthes would say. So that to me, that was very interesting to see how he decides in the different entries, you know, but this also was for me, interesting to see the motivation and the explanation for each entry, how he digs into the Italian literature, or, for example, Italian culture or stereotypes, for example, how the codes, the moral codes and the codes of beauty are subject to change in society. So, for example, being tanned. So that was something connected to sport, dynamism and modernity that also fascists wanted to support on one end, and then on the other also the tradition. But that's another story, having a tanned body, walls was gone. And he said, oh, you remember in the 19th century, when you know, this women, you know, this figure of pale and the little umbrella. And it's a. Per se. It's something that is not. It's not modern. Not modern, yes, but they condemned the Gazong, the Maschita, they call it. They condemned the woman that was too independent too, you know, so they said, okay, that is not completely accepted. Or, for example, what. It also was interesting to me to see the contradictions. And this maybe will lead to talk in another, you know, the contradiction of fascism. So, for example, the camicanera, the black shirt doesn't exist there. How come? You know? Or it doesn't talk about the civil uniforms that were so part of fascist aesthetics, even, and politics and discipline of the social body, different age and gender, et cetera, that they don't have those entries.
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April
That's really interesting.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
And so those kind of missing. Right. I had to correlate stuff with other sources in Order to analyze this tensional relationship that was never solved during Fascism, between the idea of creating an image of modernity, right? A dynamic new. So Mussolini wanted to create new Italians, a new Italy, right? In his opinion, a break needed to be established between the Pacific and the present Fascist. If you go to Rome, you see plaques and monuments in which, you know, unknown. Also the year one is 1922 and several publications, because they wanted to change the cloth, right?
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April
And this is really something. This is an interesting parallel to during the French Revolution, the Convention national did the exact same thing. You know, when we see fashion magazines from the 1790s and into the early parts of the 19th century, you often times have to jump online and convert it, because it's not even a 12 month correlation. Not only are the names of the quote, unquote, months different, but the amount of days.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
So. Absolutely.
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April
Is this its entire overhaul of the industry?
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Absolutely. I absolutely. Greek. I was talking about this, the contradictions, yes, And I think that is important to understand about the complexity and the multi layered facet of the regime in relation to fashion. And what I mean is that this is in many fields, but in terms of fashion, it is very important for me, it is crucial because these tensions between establishing establishment of a uniform, right? A style no government before Mussolini had been able to have that kind of image. They still today, right? We have this, the black shirt is the fascist uniform. You know, Mussolini always presented himself, right? And then being project of creating uniforms for children, starting when they were infants, you know, toddlers, until, you know, later, different age group, different women, different men, they had to dress in a certain way with their civil uniforms when they went to rallies and parades in this choreographic scene, right?
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April
And just that picture of a sea of uniformity, right? And these are not military uniforms, these are civilian uniforms.
- [40:32]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
So on the one hand, this project of uniforming, right, the masses, right? While on the other, the bourgeois. I mean, the variety of fashion, the incredible experimentation that went during Fascism because of this design, because of this artist, illustrators, photographers, filmmakers, that they did an incredible work. And there was not really the same, you know, they were two different levels, right? So on the one hand, this uniformity, on the other, the variety and the individualism, if you wish, you know, of fashion, creativity and so forth. So this detention never really sold. They were never sold. And they were never sold even in the way fascism saw women, for example, because women, on the one hand, you had the athletic body, very, you know, and this you see in rallies. I have consulted, of course, cinema and
- [41:38]
April
I Do want to talk about that more?
- [41:40]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
In fact, this is important for fashion. This is absolutely crucial. And then magazines in these things. Right. And then also because during Fascism, you had a school of, you know, four men teaching sport. But also for women. He did it. So they had this. And they have uniform. They also had uniforms. So for different sports. So he had this sense of aesthetics. Right. So the sense of. And while on the other, you see also the prolific mother. You know, the way that women, you know, had to be not so skinny, giving birth to many children. Men. And you see that in the magazines as well.
- [42:23]
April
It's like an archetype kind of that. That they're competing with each other.
- [42:27]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Yeah, they went kind of running, you know, parallel. Because you see also the incredible activity of women journalists, women writers writing for the magazines. And in the cinema. Cinema industry, costume designers for the first time. Because, you know, cinema and fashion were absolutely. At the time of fascism, they started to synchronize themselves. Because before, when we talk about before fascism, cinema was very, very important globally. Italian cinema, the silent cinema, he had a golden age. The divas. Italian divas were international icons. I discussed this in another book I wrote on Italian style and fashion cinema. But during fascism they went on the same. So they synchronized because of the creation of the School of Cinematography Chinilandia. So the city of cinema. Literally, there was the studios. They were the biggest studios in Europe. The was in the slogan that Mussolini in the night Duration of China Shitai 1937. It says, the cinema is the most powerful of weapons. Embrace the media. They use, you know, the media, but differently from Germany, for example. This is quite interesting. Is a cinema during Fascism, the propaganda. There were very few, maybe four or five. All the rest was entertainment. International figures teaching the School of Cinematography and the creation. And this is crucial for fashion. The Luce the newsreels. So this was an institution to educate. And then they produced short films. They started. Was founded in 1924 and then developed and G Steved Cinema and Luce the Newsreel. We have five. They are in Rome now. They are digitized. Fantastic material. A lot of money from the state. And the newsreel are so important and very important. When I was doing the research for my book, because I wanted to see, you know, different sources. To give me a sense of the way, you know, certain fashion was constructed also from. As a media, you know, during. During Fascism. And the newsreel in are so important because they are fashion shows. They. They. In my opinion, because some of them are very experimental. They're not Just a document of the fashion of the time. So in which you really see this glamour, you know, these beautiful dresses that, again, they have nothing to do with the other stuff, Right? Exact. And very international. And then there are many different cities. They have a lot of fashion shows and events in many Italian cities. So Fascism chose Turin as the capital of fashion, which is, you know, quite interesting. Not Rome, but to rent. Because maybe it was close to Paris, perhaps. And then you see all these incredible images of Italian cities at the time. Models, you know, that they were very
- [46:06]
April
thin, which is again, another contradiction.
- [46:09]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
There's a lot of interesting. So this kind of cosmopolitan. So this idea of creating. So using fashion to create also an image for Italians to recognize themselves, but also an image of Italy abroad. So in this way, fashion offers a concrete example of those tensions. So that's why fashion, in my view, is important to study at the time. And then there's more work to be done. I am in progress of doing more work on it. But why? Because really, you offer the concrete, again, materializes those things. Can see them embodied, you know, on screen, in the pages. All this kind of conflictual relationship, you know, with the conception of gender, sexuality. And you see this in films as well. And in the newsreels are sort of precursors of what, you know, we have, like fashion films, because they are micro narratives in creating. For example, there are some newsreel that I have scene in which there is an experimentation of the camera. So they say, okay, this is the way fashion should be filmed. And then they use system, technique. So it was also a way. Because cinema at that time was not so old, you know, if you think about it, 1895, 1930, was at the beginning, kind of. So the filming. Fashion was also a way of expressing, experimenting with the act of filming, the act of telling a story. And parallel to that, we must remember that because of the School of Cinematography, this is the first time that we have the creation of a professional figure of a costume designer. They didn't exist in the US started in 1920s. The recognition of this professional figure, which is very important in the creation of film and the manufacturing. So in the School of Cinematography, students learn how to make costumes. And we think of Gino Carlos. And Sani was one of the major teacher and costume designer with an art background. And his collaborator was Maria de Martes, was the mentor of Tosi Piero Tozzi, collaborated with Puchino Visconti. So, yeah, it is important to take into consideration the fact of the. Of these innovators, cultural innovators. As historian Littleton has called, you know, these people, these artists that they wear, operating, you know, and working during this, during the regime. So these are other contradictions because, you know, you have this incredible experimentation. Film directors, you know, some of the films, even entertainment film, are really, really masterpieces and need to be studied. And I think they need to be translated subtitle, you know, that's another thing. In order to see the creativity of some people, like Alessandro Blasetti, but also Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni was writing, was a writer during fascism in several journals. We must remember also that In Venice, the first film festival, 1932, wow. According to the Biennale, you know, it was already the Biennale degli arti, but in 1932 was the year in which festival in the world, actually. So. And it was also international. So it is interesting also to see in this kind of tensions that this is this cosmopolitanism at the same time of nationalism. Because you have international figures teaching at the School of Cinematography, you had collaboration also with the us. There was a lot of. All these filmmakers were able to see even Soviet cinema, Hollywood, everything, basically. And so that is. It is important, I think, to take into consideration all these important aspects. And so cinema was able to really project, along with periodicals and magazines, this art, you know, the art of costuming. They started to talk about, you know, set design and decoration. There was a debate in different magazines about that as well. And architecture and that continue even during the war. And think of. I just want to mention, there are many films like Contessa di Parma by Blasetti Grande magazine, Department stores, it's called by Camerini. Camerini did other comedies that they were really, really, you know, great films. And documenting also this creation of new femininity, new models of femininity, Women who work in department stores or as models or in fashion houses and so forth. Foreigners.
- [51:54]
Podcast Host/Co-host
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Similarly, also, you have in Hollywood a lot of in the 30s several films documenting those kind of environments. In the book, in fact, I compared the film by Blazetti, Contessa di Parma, set in Turin in 1937 to an American film by William Seiter Roberta with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, which is, you know, very interesting to see the way. Also in that film, fashion is used to present a new national identity in American identity and an American fashion. Yeah.
- [55:14]
April
And there's a lot of parallels there between that push to kind of like untether yourself nationally from the canopy from Paris.
- [55:24]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Absolutely, yes.
- [55:26]
April
So one last question I have for you and this is really fascinating because we have quite a lot of surprisingly Polish fashion magazines at fit. Special collections that were produced at the time when they were under Nazi occupation. And you have noted in your book that sometimes shop windows in Italy would incorporate either images or, like, really specific, direct references to Mussolini in their window displays. And this is actually something that I've seen in both German and Polish fashion magazines that were produced under the Nazi regime. Not only do we see images in the fashion magazines of Hitler, but also kind of more regional or national leaders in the case of Poland. And I'm just kind of. I'm curious if you have any. Any thoughts on the significance of these really specific, direct references to political leaders in that fashion sphere.
- [56:26]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Yeah, thank you. It would be interesting to see this magazine.
- [56:30]
April
You are welcome anytime.
- [56:33]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Yeah, thank you for mentioning this. It's quite a good question, I think, as to some of the. With the toast of the leader, the cult of the Duce. And so, in a way, it was seen as the embodiment of this new nation, the way, you know, the Fascist nation. And I think in the case of Mussolini, Mussolini and Italian Fascists were very much also concerned with the idea of aesthetics and style in connection with politics. And also, I think the idea of almost being in love with Duce. And this has happened. For example, there is a film by Ettorescola called Special Day with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, in which we see, for instance, it's a one day in Rome when Hitler visited, officially the official visit of Hitler to Mussolini. And the film, it is very. It's a beautiful film. But one of the things that connects to your question is that the female character, she is a housewife, Sophia Loren. And she describes the fact that she's almost in love in adoration of the figure of the Duce. And so the fact that this presence of the Duce in your life in every day, the way you think, the way you dress, the way you salute, not because they change the way you walk. I remember my mother who grew up during fashion, telling me where soul. The way they had to walk, the way they had to direct their gaze, because he said, the Duce is looking at you. So you have to interfere in a way to the way. Oh, yeah. So that's it. So to be arrested in your posture, like a miniaturesque kind of. And I think the idea of incorporating, because they do check to be everywhere, basically leisure time shopping. So it's like that you were embracing the nation, you know, you were embracing the values, especially for Italy, I would say, was part of this project of intimate connection, emotional connection with the figure of the Duce.
- [59:26]
April
Right, right. Well, and of course, the war, actually, World War II, would be the undoing of Mussolini's dictatorship. He was actually removed from power by his own council in July of 1943. And that kind of brings a little bit of a close to this chapter of fashion history that we've been speaking about today. But, Dr. Palatilli, I'm curious as to your thoughts as to if the government's efforts to kind of direct and unify the Italian fashion industry, were they successful under fascism, and what is the legacy of that particular era in terms of Italian fashion today?
- [60:04]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Okay, so I. In. Let me try to go in order here. Yes, 1943, of course, was a moment in which, yes, Mussolini was arrested, but then, you know, Italy, Hitler took him and brought it to the north of Italy. And they had the Salo Republic, you know, the Social Republic. You know, Italy, in Sicily, the German occupation was an incredible period. And yet you had, during that time, publications, which is kind of incredible if you think about it. You know, we had. There were publications. One magazine especially I want to mention is called Benezza Beauty. That was the mouthpiece of the regime. But one of the creative, the artistic creator of the. Of the magazine was Giovannti, an architect, an artist. He advocated, I mean, also in the post war, one of the most important designers for Italy. And he saw fashion as part of the arts, you know, and the Italian style of living. So this project was more than. He then had some troubles, you know, with the magazine itself. But it is interesting to see the fact that many people really wanted to embrace this idea of let the world know about the richness of Italian history, but not necessarily identify with the nationalistic project, because, in fact, that project failed, as, you know, in a way, the sumptuary laws failed.
- [61:47]
April
Human nature.
- [61:49]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Examples Ferragamo. Salvatore Ferragamo to return from the United States in 1927, establish his business in Florence. There were certain documents that I consulted that they were never published. They were in proofs, you know, just because the war broke up. But one of them at Ferragamo, he said that nationalism is anathema for, you know, the creativity in fashion. Because this idea of closing yourself in your own kind of, you know, you really need to open up, embrace an understanding in wider kind of context. And Ferragamo was one of the most inventive, right, because he created incredible shoes, right, with poor material, which even today, for example, the Ferragamo Museum in Florence. And this is the legacy, you see, the legacies. So the legacy. What is the legacy? The legacy is, first of all that made in Italy and Italian style, you know, whenever you, you, you see the history of Italian fashion, they start, okay, 1951, Florence Giorgini. Actually, this year is 70 years right from that. So the thing is, I'm more complicated than that because. Because of course, you know, they couldn't just come out like that without all this history, without all these different experimentation and attempts. The other thing is that Italy is a fragmented, kind of fragmented, but instead of fragmented, I would like to use the word, it's polycenters, you know, Italy. And that's in a way also make us understand that we cannot use same paradigm in the history of fashion in general. If we use the history of fashion, French fashion, it's not the same of Italian fashion. We have to change paradigm, because otherwise we don't understand. And what do I need by that do I mean by that is that the plurality of centers in Italy, the
- [64:01]
April
cities and regional specialties, it's a specialty,
- [64:05]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
it's not a weak identity, in my view, that is a strong identity is not only strong, but is also the uniqueness of Italy, that is not France, let's face it. And so we cannot use the same model as one size fits all, in order to understand the relation between fashion, modernity and modernism. Otherwise we will miss the different experimentations. And I use Italy as a model that could be applied to other countries. You know, in fact, it is interesting that more publications are coming out of countries like Poland, the Eastern and so forth, to make us understand that fashion was an issue also in other countries, that maybe you don't, you didn't think about it or you didn't know. We simply didn't know. The idea in principle is like that. We have to declare, reconstruct the idea of Western exceptionalism, European exceptionalism, Parisian exceptionalism, because if we don't do that, we don't understand that kind of phenomenon. So the legacy is the fact that there were many creative people, like Serragamo, for example, Gucci already started in 1921. Industrial, you know, the skulls are producing Ryan. These were big industry, they were instrumental also for the launch. And then all these different sartoria that were already established and then they developed later on. So this, the creativity, I would say, the know how, the craftsmanship. But this was independent from the policies of the regime, because these people were already highly skilled and highly creative. What is another aspect that I would Say the legacy is the fact that even it is important, the nationalization. So the fact that each country. And we know that as a fact. So there is the importance that the state is involved in the fashion industry, in promoting and all that. And I think that is what fascism did for his own ends, of course, but was not done before in Italy. And there is a legacy there. I mean, then later on, of course, we have the Camera Nazionale della Moda and other institutions. And the difficulty sometimes of this plurality, that's another aspect in Italy. Regionalism and individualism, which is another, I would say another part of the Italian character that could be a beauty, you know, but could be also a beast. No, you're kind of. You want to do your own, your own thing or say, oh, well, you know, Milano is better than Rome. Then Roman said, no, Rome is better than so and so, this kind of thing. But I think, I hope I have answered your question. Yes, the legacy, yes, but we need to study. What I mean is that we need to study different periods, of course, and for Italian, in order to understand Italian history. But Italian, the history of Italian fashion, you cannot start in the post war. You have to really delve in depth in other. And as for other countries, of course, then the material to be translated, you know, that's very important task for fashion historians and scholars because otherwise we will have only one narrative and that's not possible anymore.
- [68:03]
April
Right. And this is why we always say that we could literally make this podcast until the end of time, because there is so much work still to be done for all of us. And, you know, I started out my career as an academic, as an art historian, and then once I kind of discovered that fashion studies and especially fashion history was even an option, I was so attracted to it because of that wide open space in terms of you're not going to be this 78th person writing on a particular topic. Like sometimes you are in art history because it's so been canonized for so long. But that's really one of the things that I love about what we do, that there's so much room to just keep going.
- [68:44]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
I cannot agree more with you. My passion, since I was in graduate school in Italian doing Italian studies. And I cannot agree with you more. This is really the richness of this field of study that deserves more and more to be acknowledged everywhere.
- [69:05]
April
Absolutely. Dr. Palatielli, thank you so much for joining us today. This was fascinating. Think our regular listeners will know this episode is right up my alley with my special interest at the intersection of like war, fashion, these periods of crisis. So this was very enlightening. Thank you.
- [69:23]
Dr. Eugenia Policelli
Thank you very much. It was an honor to be part of your podcast.
- [69:27]
Podcast Host/Co-host
Thank you, Dr. Policelli, thank you for sharing your work on this incredibly interesting period of Italian fashion and dress history with us today. And April, her point is well taken in terms of translating primary sources to other languages to open up topics to scholars in other countries who might not speak a particular language. And I this is something we've definitely run into on more than a few occasions on topics that we wanted to cover on trust. A few times our research has come to a halt on things actually when we might find the best sources to only be in another language like Japanese or Russian, etcetera, etcetera.
- [70:03]
April
Yeah, absolutely. But this does have an upside because this does make way for us to reach out to our colleagues around the world who are native speakers and to chat with them about their specific research on fashion history of whatever part of this great blue planet they might happen to reside. There's a lot of us out there now, and I'm just going to say it again, this really is one of my very favorite parts of making the show. You know, learning from our fellow researchers and colleagues and being able to share their unique knowledge with our audience. I think that does it for us this week. Dressed listeners, may you consider where the power resides in your closet. Next time you get dressed, please head
- [70:44]
Podcast Host/Co-host
over to Rest podcast on Instagram or Rest podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated
- [70:54]
April
with each week's episodes.
- [70:55]
Podcast Host/Co-host
Remember, remember, we love hearing from you dress listeners, so if you'd like to write to us you can do so@helloresshistory.com DressHistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses. And there you can also check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.
- [71:14]
We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you're interested you can always find a link in our shop show notes to our bookshop.org bookshelf so that address is bookshop.org shop forward/dressed and there you will find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles.
- [71:35]
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- [72:00]
Thank you as always for tuning in and more Dressed coming your way soon. The history of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media.
- [72:12]
Podcast Narrator/Announcer
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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April
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Podcast Host/Co-host
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April
Oh, sorry.
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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April
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Dr. Eugenia Policelli
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