Italian Style - (Topics and Issues in National Cinema) by Eugenia Paulicelli

Book Synopsis

This is the first in-depth, book-length study on fashion and Italian cinema from the silent film to the present. Italian cinema launched Italian fashion to the world. The book is the story of this launch. The creation of an Italian style and fashion as they are perceived today, especially by foreigners, was a product of the post World War II years. Before then, Parisian fashion had dominated Europe and the world. Just as fashion was part of Parisian and French national identity, the book explores the process of shaping and inventing an Italian style and fashion that ran parallel to, and at times took the lead in, the creation of an Italian national identity. In bringing to the fore these intersections, as well as emphasizing the importance of craft in cinema, fashion and costume design, the book aims to offer new visions of films by directors such as Nino Oxilia, Mario Camerini, Alessandro Blasetti, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti and Paolo Sorrentino, of film stars such as Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini, Pina Menichelli, Lucia Bosè, Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni, Toni Servillo and others, and the costume archives and designers who have been central to the development of Made in Italy and Italian style.

Review Quotes

"This critically elegant and highly readable book tackles anew how fashion and cinema combine social history with aesthetics. Impressively well researched, Italian Style is a compelling exploration of how the fashion industry and its costume designers shaped the cultural context of national identity. With vigor and clarity, Paulicelli illuminates such films as Fellini's Roma, Antonioni's Le amiche, and Sorrentino's La grande bellezza. A must-read for anyone with an interest in cinema and passion for this glorious art." --Gaetana Marrone, Professor of Italian, Princeton University, USA

""Paulicelli's book is a tour de force of film and fashion scholarship, a beautifully written and authoritative exploration of Italian national identity that will appeal to a wide readership. In mapping out Italy's rich cultural heritage from early twentieth century modernism, through the economic miracle years to the present day, this book sets out to do nothing less than define Italian style as embodied by the dialogue between fashion and film. That Italian Style achieves this is testament to its brilliance."" --Stella Bruzzi, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, UK

"Eugenia Paulicelli's Italian Style: Fashion and Film from Early Cinema to the Digital Age, is a lucid and beautifully written text that promotes, with the qualitative value of its intellectual research, the engaging fields of fashion and film. This text is a must to understand their complex interrelation and influence on the construction of Italian national and cultural identity from the early 20th century to our 21st century." --La Voce di New York

About the Author

Eugenia Paulicelli is Professor of Italian, Comparative Literature and Women's Studies at Queens College and The Graduate Center, The City University of New York (CUNY), USA. At The Graduate Center she directs Fashion Studies in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) and the PhD Concentration. Among her books: Fashion under Fascism: Beyond the Black Shirt (2004); Moda e Moderno (editor, 2006); The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity, Globalization (co-editor, 2009); Writing Fashion in Early Modern Italy (2014); Rosa Genoni: Fashion is a Serious Business (2015). Visit her website at www.eugeniapaulicelli.com.