A New History of "Made in Italy": Fashion and Textiles in Post-War Italy

(Paperback)

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In the first book to examine the role played by textile manufacturing in the development of fashion in Italy, A New History of Made in Italy investigates Italys transition from a country of dressmakers, tailors and small-scale couturiers in the early post-Second World War period to a major producer of ready-to-wear fashion in the 1980s. It takes the reader from Italys first internationally attended fashion show in 1951 to Time magazines Giorgio Armani April 1982 cover story, which signalled the fashion designers international arrival, and Milans presence as the capital of ready-to-wear. Chapters focus for the first time on the material substance of Italian fashion textile looking at questions including the importance of manufacturing quality, design innovation, composition, production techniques, commerce and the role of textile on the countrys overall fashion system. Through these, Lucia Savi brings to light the importance of synthetic fibres, previously little-known players, such as the carnettisti (a type of textile wholesalers) as well as re-investigating well-known couturiers and designers such as Simonetta, Gianfranco Ferr and Gianni Versace. By looking at how things are made, by whom, and where, this book seeks to unpack the Made in Italy label through a focus on making. Informed by extensive archival materials retrieved from a wide range of sources, it brings together the often-separated disciplines of fashion, textile and design history.

Reviews

In this long-awaited study, [Savi] probes with surgical acuity the connections in economics and fashion history that led to the worldwide spread and ... democratization of Italian fashion ... [exploring] new territory in terms of both method and sources ... with crisp color illustrations, indispensable for the reproduction of fabric patterns and drawings. * The Journal of Design History *
A beautifully researched, 'inside out' study demystifying the origins of Made in Italy fashion ... A long overdue resource. * Sonnet Stanfill, V&A London, UK *
Highly original ... offering radically new insights into postwar Italian fashion and its links with production, industrial and technological advances, and the fashion system. * Giuliana Pieri, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK *
Bringing together textile and fashion history and meticulously researched, Savi brings an innovative and important material and making-based dimension to understand the post-WWII rise of Italian fashion in new ways. * Catharine Rossi, University for the Creative Arts, UK *
The first study to bring together two well-documented but hitherto unconnected fields post-war Italian fashion and post-war Italian textiles. Savi has brilliantly understood the umbilical cords that link them. * Penny Sparke, Kingston University, UK *

Author Bio

Lucia Savi is a curator at the Design Museum, London. In 2021 she curated the V&A exhibition Bags: Inside Out and authored its accompanying publication. Dr Savi has a PhD from Kingston University, UK, on Italian fashion and textiles, and has contributed to fashion and design exhibitions and their catalogues including The Glamour of Italian Fashion 19452014 (V&A, 2014) and Beyond Bloomsbury: Design of the Omega Workshops 1913-1919 (Courtauld, 2009).