ZoneModa Journal

Ballets and Representation of Power in Piedmont in the 17th Century: Costumes for the Dancing Court

2023-11-13T12:15:54+01:00

The National Library and the Royal Library of Turin hold thirteen manuscripts that reproduce as many performances, staged at the Savoy court between 1640 and 1681. The manuscripts reflect the artistic, cultural and political climate of 17th-century Turin and also include descriptions of the costumes worn by the performers, along with a rich collection of images. The captions and depictions thus provide a valuable source for the study of fashion and clothing of the period. More specifically, the contribution focuses on the attire worn by Duke Carlo Emanuele II in the ballets and the lexicon of clothing in use at the time. The work brings visibility to texts that are still largely unpublished.

Walter Albini on the Nuances of Camp

2023-11-21T19:52:21+01:00

Four decades after the death of Walter Albini, this study proposes a monograph based on archival research at the CSAC, Center for Studies and Archives of Communication at the University of Parma, focusing on the figure of the stylist Walter Albini, recognized as the precursor of prêt-à-porter. Through archival research, the author explores one of the most significant archives of the stylist, consisting of 4191 heterogeneous materials. Focusing on the men's collection Fall-Winter 1975-1976, presented at the Ristorante Angolo in Milan in March 1975, the analysis reveals the pioneering concept of gender introduced by Albini, highlighting an identity short circuit with the model Emy Vincenzini. In the second part, the author analyzes the concept of Camp, following the paths opened by Christopher Breward and the theorizations of Susan Sontag. It examines the citation of the Twenties and Thirties, the passion for Art Nouveau, the interest in the figure of the dandy and Marlene Dietrich, as well as the sensitivity to the aesthetics of the androgynous. Through a camp perspective, Albini emerges as a creator who subverts binary gender conventions, emphasizing identity transformations during his fashion shows.

Fashion and cultural geographies. Florence as capital of the post-modern Trend

2023-11-18T10:17:44+01:00

Starting from the Pitti Trend salon (1985-88), this contribution intends to investigate the function of fashion as a catalysing agent of the creative ferment that swept through Florence during the 1980s, making it one of the capitals of Italian post-modern culture. Moreover, the international nature of the Florentine fair – conceived as a showcase for avant-garde fashion – in encouraging the participation of young Italian and Florentine designers, offers an opportunity for a more general reflection that re-examines the cultural history of Italian fashion.

Re-Fashioning Masculinities: Curating Men’s Fashion Between Historical Rereadings and Redefinitions of Gender

2023-11-24T14:08:02+01:00

The article critically observes the fashion exhibition Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, March 19 - November 6, 2022) in order to weave an in-depth analysis of the evolutions of menswear through the concepts of self-fashioning and historical rereadings. The aim is to reveal the dynamics between curation, clothing, and the temporality of fashion within the V&A exhibition, and to demonstrate how the practice of self-fashioning fuelles historical rereadings and the proliferation of definitions of masculinity. Supported by a heterogeneous theoretical framework, the expanded reading of the exhibition finally demonstrates how the practice of self-fashioning acts as a tool for fashion curating in reflecting on gender definitions.

Political T-shirt: An Iconic Piece of Clothing from Vivienne Westwood to Maria Grazia Chiuri

2023-11-14T15:51:10+01:00

Launched on the US market in the first decade of the 20th century as a 'bachelor suit' by the Cooper Underwear Company, the T-shirt was christened as such only a few years later when, in 1920, Francis Scott Fitzgerald included a reference to the T-shirt in his This Side of Paradise. From then on, the popularity of this garment grew until it became a transversal must-have. The responsibility for this success (which exploded in the 1950s) was twofold. At the same time, thanks to the simplicity that had always characterised the t-shirt and had allowed it, in its early days, to be proposed as the perfect garment for bachelors, the tee became a uniform for the very young, who used it as a symbol of the rebellion against the interference of the dominant bourgeoisie. Through this mechanism of appropriation the genesis of the political t-shirt had been written: the simplest of garments had become a uniform. Starting from these initial considerations, the contribution - using the methodology of analysis of fashion theories and, in particular, semiotic tools - intends to reflect on the evolution of the t-shirt, focusing on the communicative choices (and consequences) implemented in three specific cases of political t-shirts (the long-sleeved "God Save the Queen" model by Vivienne Westwood in 1977, the "58% Don't Want Pershing" t-shirt by Katharine Hamnett in 1984 and the "We should all be feminist" t-shirt designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior in 2017).

Barbara Stanwyck’s Grey Hair

2023-11-15T18:46:01+01:00

Unlike many Hollywood stars of her generation, Barbara Stanwyck extended and diversified her film career during the 1950s by starring in numerous B-series westerns, where her dominant image of independent, tough woman, questioned the limits of gender and genre. Postwar Hollywood production system has changed and veteran film stars were less in demand. This paper aims to investigate the role of Barbara Stanwick as "mature women’s role model". If it is true that her maturity, emphasized by premature gray hair and the refusal to dye them, influenced her roles and transformed her into a model for mature women, aging certainly not helped fostering her film career. As the scholar Susan Hayward states, "aging is too real - not the “real we want to see" (1996, p. 340). Moreover, Stanwyck’s fascination with the western genre is consistent with his image as a mature woman with Republican tendencies. In 1973, she was the first woman to be included in the "Hall of Fame of Great Western Performers" at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

The Two Kingdoms. On the Relationship between Fashion and Art

2023-11-26T15:39:44+01:00

Is fashion history a branch of art history? Is the nature of the two ontologically different? Moreover, can the concept of fashion be extended to include other practices, such as more traditional forms of clothing? In our contemporary academic panorama where “including” has superseded the concept of “defining”, these questions are often only tangentially considered by fashion scholars but hardly faced directly. This essay aims to bring attention to the very definition of fashion and its differences with art. Drawing from the study of aesthetics and the theory of fashion, the paper will try to go beyond the material qualities that art and fashion sometimes share and look at the social, historical, and symbolic processes underpinning each of the two fields. The essay attempts to create an overarching theory that explains the intrinsic qualities of fashion and art from an ontological standpoint. To achieve this goal, the essay will analyse some specific cases and show how fashion and art look similar only when observed from a distance. Ultimately, it will be suggested that the difference between the two is not found in their material qualities but in how they are consumed and how they signify.

“Historical Mode”. Heritage and Revival in Contemporary Fashion

2023-11-24T00:11:42+01:00

The article explores the links between fashion and the past in contemporary times, the love of revival, the taste for vintage and the importance of a brand's cultural heritage. All elements that today, in the midst of globalisation, have become increasingly important. Brand heritage is a fundamental aspect of a brand's identity, it represents what a brand is now seen through the lens of its own history. This yearning for the appreciation of one's roots is one of the priorities of the big luxury holding companies which, for 25 years now, have tirelessly continued their climb up the ranks of the brands with the most illustrious history.

People, Planet, Profit, and Discourse. How Sustainability Rewrites the History of Fashion

2023-11-15T16:33:43+01:00

The contribution moves from the temporal perspective of the Anthropocene, in which the human being is seen as creator and manipulator of what surrounds it, to ask what shape time has in the perspective of fashion and how it is being rewritten in a post-anthropocentric direction. For this purpose, we intend to shed light on the complex relationship of fashion with its historical dimension by analyzing the complexity that the term sustainability evokes. The contribution proposes a conceptual and methodological framework based on three key aspects of sustainability explained by the so-called three “p”s strategy: people, planet and profit. Through this framework, the contribution offers the possibility of addressing the dense series of temporal references necessary to re-read the connections between fashion and sustainability, incorporating into the investigation both the development of a theory of sustainability related to fashion and the analysis of specific cases of study. The perspective highlighted by this contribution allows us to frame fashion as a destructive force, but also as a possible transformative, hybridizing and healing agent, as a conscious form of conservation of the physical, social and cultural environment in which we live.

Editorial

2023-12-13T12:00:55+01:00

Fashion & History. How Fashion has Written History

2023-12-06T12:09:22+01:00

Lucia Savi. A New History of Made in Italy. Fashion and Textile in Post-War Italy. Bloomsbury, 2023

2023-11-27T11:52:25+01:00

Dorothea Burato, Emilio Federico Schuberth. Moda e media ai tempi della Dolce Vita. Electa, 2023

2023-12-05T20:11:44+01:00

Fashion Meets Archeology: Safeguarding the Heritage of Sudan Countering Cultural Appropriation. A Conversation with Ahmed H. A. Adam.

2023-12-10T21:03:34+01:00

Vittorio Linfante, Massimo Zanella. Il design del Tessuto Italiano. Dal Déco al contemporaneo. Il tessuto stampato. Marsilio Arte, 2023

2023-12-06T12:18:04+01:00

(RI)PENSARE LA MODA // (RE)THINKING FASHION at Notte dei Ricercatori 2023. An exhibition on today to tackle the challenges of tomorrow

2023-12-10T21:06:20+01:00

Mauro Ferraresi. ModaMedia. Nuovi scenari comunicativi del fashion system. Guerini Next, 2023

2023-12-19T09:55:51+01:00