Italian fashion: yesterday,today and tomorrow

The article considers Gianna Manzini's ‘La moda e una cosa seria’ (La Donna, 1935, July, 36–37) as a forerunner of current scholarly approaches to fashion in general and Italian fashion in particular, for three reasons. First, it asserts the importance of a gendered history of fashion; second, it argues for the importance of boundaries and lines of demarcation in the study of fashion that do not pertain solely to time but also to fields, disciplines and the other arts, as well as social and political domains; third, it raises the question of the relationship between fashion and nation. In examining how and when to establish the beginning or the origin of Italian fashion, the article argues for a long history of Italian fashion that stretches as far back as early modernity, thus reframing a number of historiographical questions. The article goes on to signal the difficulty involved in establishing neat points of ruptures and origins, and continuities in any historical or cultural spectrum in view of the porosity of national boundaries; and makes the case for considering fashion, both today's and that of yesteryear, in both its national and transnational dimensions.