HISTORY OF FASHION

FASHION AS A COMMUNICATION PHENOMENON

I. FASHION

I.1. MAIN FEATURES OF FASHION

The word moda (hereinafter referred as fashion) appears for the first time in Italy towards the

mid 1600’s. It was a translation of the word mode already used in France, coming from the Latin

modus (manner, choice), which expressed the concept of something fair. Thus something is

considered in fashion when it is perceived as fair and fitting in a given historical period and context.

According to some studies carried out on this topic, clothing have two main functions: protection

and modesty. The kind of protection given by clothing is against cold weather, but we get dressed

for modesty, that is not to be ashamed showing intimate parts of our body; although some say that

we use clothing to decorate our body or to express a precise identity within a given social context.

Up to the end of the Middle Ages the way people got dressed was unvaried and that because

the society was rather static and the past used to be the only supreme value, a sort of reference point

for all behaviors. With the breaking up of the Medieval culture and the developing of the

Renaissance, changing became a fundamental and aspired value and society started moving towards

the future, while the individual sees himself entitled with the right to change social structures and

make personal decisions as for aesthetics.

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Therefore the development of fashion was made possible by the contemporary development

in the Western countries of the so-called modern culture and its democratic principles. Two crucial

aspects for this thing to happen were, first of all, the idealization of whatever was considered new

and the myth of the social progress as well as the opportunity of the individual to get rid of

traditional social bonds and feel free to express his own decision-making skills. And that’s the

reason why fashion is constantly changing and renewing itself.

The law of variation is the core of fashion: it redefines endlessly what’s in fashion and what’s

not, even through a quick succession of cycles for an endless production of new forms or that

appear as such. At the beginning of the XVIII century, the doctor Bernand Bandeville was the first

stating that fashion spreads thanks to imitation, that it the need of individuals to compete imitating

and being better than the other, although taking into consideration what was worn at that time in the

royal palace. On the same wavelength, a century after, the sociologist Herbert Spencer stated that

fashion lays on imitative principles, although belonging to industrial societies and determined by

the need to be homogeneous with and be accepted by those persons considered superior or of a

higher level.

Georg Simmel believes that the cause of the variation of fashion is to be found in an endless

comparison between two opposite impulses that are innate in human beings: the one looking for

imitation (or equality) and the other that moves towards the differentiation (or changing). He says

that fashion is a phenomenon 100% cultural and conditioned by social system dynamics. It is the

result of a society having at its top a superior class always trying to differentiate from lower classes,

showing the diversity of their privileged status as well as the fact that they don’t need to work

wearing white clothes that gets dirty easily, or again flaunting their wealth buying new luxury and

consumption goods. When it comes to lower classes, they do try to imitate the choices of higher

classes, forcing these latters to re establish their positions by changing again their choices that, once

copied and imitated, are trivialized and no longer express wealth. This generates a movement of

fashions and consumption goods from higher to lower classes of a given society.

During 1900, John Carl Flugel formulated a new hypothesis – always bearing in mind the

former ones stating that fashion was the result of a psychic contrast between modesty and flaunting.

His new hypothesis was based on the sexual competitiveness used by women as a seduction

instrument, including the shifting of the primary erogenous area (back, breast and legs). We find the

same explanation in Alexander Elster, according to whom the social repression of polygamy

prevented the satisfaction of the so-called erotic variation biological need, to which fashion tried to

provide for through clothing. During the 1950’s, the American researcher Lloyd Fallers invented

the theory of the vertical diffusion, also known as trickle down theory. Such theory highlighted how

fashion cycles are determined by innovation that moves from the top to the bottom of a given

society, it spreads wearing out its symbolic meanings, determining the need of a new innovation.

According to Werner Sombart, the birth of fashion is to be explained as an inclination to luxury

goods consumption that aims at calming down the anguishing feelings generated by the modern

society. The traumatic passage from a community condition to modern times made people lost that

comforting feeling to belong to a collective reality: now he is alone, by himself, facing death and

thus he wants to experiment all possible pleasures during his short existence.

Fashion was looked at with a different eye when we passed from advanced industrial

societies to a new organization structure that was defined, at first, as post-industrial. The

replacement of a social pyramidal structure with a structure that tends to develop horizontally,

characterized by an increasingly greater middle class, meant the starting point for completely

different approaches differentiating the lifestyles of a bunch of new social subgroups belonging to

the middle class. Consumption goods start then spreading on a horizontal level because they are not

referred to wealthier classes anymore but to other classes as well, including families. Due to the

number of social changings that took place towards the end of the 1800’s, flaunting behaviors were

no longer meant for other classes but rather for members of the same class, characterizing not only

higher classes but mid and lower classes too.

As for higher classes, flaunting behaviors are always more complex, ironic, and based on

one’s personal style rather than personal wealth. In a post-industrial social context it is no longer

acceptable that fashion trends move from the top to the bottom of societies. During the 1960’s,

Dwight Robinson speaks of simultaneous and horizontal diffusion of fashion in different social

classes, whereas Charles King in the same years proposes to replace the trickle down theory with

his new trickle across theory. In the following decade, many authors state that trends can develop

also from the bottom to the top of societies: they can originate from social minorities, as youth

vanguards, that in those years significantly influence the creation of new trends. In this direction,

Blumberg proposes to replace the idea of trickle down with the trickle up or bubble up. With the

loosing up of the society’s hierarchical structure and the gradual development of the middle class,

fashion became more and more accessible and democratic, and centers where trends were created

rose almost everywhere.

II. ARISTOCRATIC FASHION

II.1. THE COSTUME DEVELOPMENT

The first sparks of fashion were visible already at the end of the Middle Age with the

establishing of different kinds of clothing for men and women. In fact, until the half of the XIV

century, men and women used to wear baggy tunics and long capes. After that and all along the XV

century, the style didn’t really change, despite the number of changings in clothing. Men started

wearing the so-called farsetto (a sort of tight and short gilet) together with a sort of socks (similar to

tights) usually colorful and flashy. Women, on the other hand, started wearing long and tight

dresses, usually low-necked, as well as bizarre hats. Men and women started then differentiating

their outfits depending on the sex.

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All this gave life to a sort of seductive behavior that developed with the years and

historically represented one of the main factors of the development of fashion itself. One of the

main reasons of this process was the social serenity following the end of the Barbarian invasions

and the progressive development of modern states (from 1300 until 1800 every single European

state developed a specific style, although starting from 1700 France hold the hegemony in fashion).

In addition, the economic expansion was made possible by the revolution of agricultural

production methodologies, by the development of handcrafts and international commerce, by the

onset of first metropolis as well as weaving corporations for the production of manufacturing

dresses and pieces of clothing in general. In its first phase, fashion was something referred to

monarchy and aristocracy. Lower classes kept wearing the same clothes not only cause of their

scarce financial means but also due to the so-called sumptuary laws issued in many cities between

1300 and 1600 not to allow people belonging to lower social classes wear clothes meant for upper

classes.

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So insatiable bourgeois started imitating and dressing up like noble people, thus forcing

them to change their style and create new fashions. During the 1700’s, century of the French

Revolution (1789), revolutionaries used to dress up with peculiar uniform features to recall

nationalist, equality and freedom principles. They also introduced the use of long baggy trousers,

compared to short and skinny noble ones. Last but not least, they abolished rugs and laces, symbols

of a hated aristocracy: in general everything belonging to aristocracy is abolished both with regard

to men and women.

Up to the beginning of the 1800’s, fashion developed mainly with regard to aristocracy: it

developed through a progressive “artificiality” of the body because, in the court, interpersonal

relationships were innatural and “artificial” as they were mainly dominated by the respect of strict

protocols and manners. The Restoration imposed to women very simple and classic customs also

known as the “imperial style”, inspired to ancient Greece and ancient Rome. It consisted of a long

tunic made with a thin fabric, hold by a lace or a fold under the breast and it was usually worn

without anything else underneath in accordance to the new vision of the freedom of the body.

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III.HAUTE COUTURE

III.1.BOURGEOISIE FASHION

Bourgeoisie fully established itself in the society during the XIX century, and immediately

felt the need to find a specific social identity based on appearance: clothes. So we notice different

styles compared to farmers and workers, or aristocracy and other kinds of bourgeoisie as well.

That is why the XIX century has been a crucial period for fashion, also known as the

modern phase of fashion. A century that fostered changes and saw the outset of organized systems

of clothing production meant only for an elite of buyers who, however, were able to influence the

entire population.

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Haute couture was born in autumn 1857 in Paris, with the opening of the English atelier of

Charles Worth: he was the very first imposing his own style by proposing every year a new

collection of exposure dresses that buyers could see and choose and would have been tailored and

customized later on. It was thus created a system of production based on two different levels: on

one hand, the haute couture created its dress models for the high bourgeoisie; on the other, the

industrial tailoring imitated the same models for lower social classes.

III.2. THE DAWNING/OUTSET OF HAUTE COUTURE

At the beginning of the XX century, through the crucial role played by fashion magazines,

we witnessed a further change in the clothing system, that is forced to reorganize itself and present

new collection every 6 months. Vogue magazine, founded at the end of 1800, has progressively

become the main reference point, a sort of pillar in the sector, as for presenting new dresses and

collections introducing photography. The main stylist of the beginning of 1900 is Paul Poiret,

imposing himself thanks to the creation of easy-making and comfortable dresses, of clear oriental

inspiration: he imposed trousers for women, shortened skirts, but above all reduced the use of the

bustière, symbol of submissions that repressed the body. He did so to interpret the social

emancipation desire of his clients, thus changing the female silhouette, although being still too

attached to a kind of aesthetic that is too close to the Liberty movement.

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At a certain point people felt the need to give a more effective interpretation to the

revolutionary phase that was affecting fashion in the early 1900’s: during the 1920’s, for instance,

every single woman – so not only aristocracy or bourgeoisie – started having a social life and

wanted to be free to express her own style according to the emancipation movements that were

rising in that specific period, and all this gave birth to a very important liberalization process of

women’s personality and body.

The First World War was fundamental in this direction as often women found themselves

carrying out activities that were usually carried out by men that had left to join the army. So

women, replacing men in factories and farming activities had to wear more comfortable and

functional dresses, closer to men clothing. So women could be no longer considered weak and

vulnerable as during the 1800, but they had to give a strong and dynamic image: so the strong

connection existing between the body and clothing has been a decisive impulse towards the

liberalization of fashion, uncovering more and more the body and adopting a manly hair cut also

known as à la garçonne, presented in Paris in 1924, that made them look like unshaped teenagers.

Jean Patou and, even more, Gabrielle Chanel – also known as Coco played a fundamental role for

the modernization of women clothing. Patou was the first stylist ever putting his name on his

creations and in 1930 he presents the cologne “Joy”, still considered one of the best classic

fragrances.

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III.3. COCO CHANEL: THE BIRTH OF CHIC

Coco Chanel was able to interpret women’s emancipation process in the world of fashion –

born in the first decades of the 1900 – by making dresses more masculine, stricter and practical. She

decides to completely abandon the bustier and replace it with minimal tailleurs, shirts, pull overs,

ties, trousers, the so-called à cloche hats, short and tailored fit dresses made with practical and

comfortable fabrics, but also poor ones such as jersey, using neutral colors as black, blue, white and

replacing jewels with flashy trinkets. Coco Chanel’s style was probably influenced by her own

biography: first of all, her humble origins of a child who had lost her mother and was abandoned in

a convent by her father; she was raised by nuns who taught her that a young lady had to behave in a

sober and austere way.

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Her experience as a young singer in concert cafès helped her get to know several important

people in the art field, such as Max Jacov, Pierre Reverdy, Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso and Igor

Stravinskij, and they were all so poor that Coco herself used to keep them. So on one hand Coco

was influenced by the cubist aesthetic, characterized by vertical and horizontal lines, angular plans

and bidimentional geometries; and on the other hand by the modern movement, characterized by a

rejection of decorations but rather a promotion of objects’ linearity and functionality.

We have to bear in mind also the influences that Coco received by her lovers as Arthur

“Boy” Capel that had adopted a style appearantly poor and neglected but in reality rich in details

according to the tastes of the English dandies who preferred vintage clothes to new clothes and who

said that the real “elegance” was to be unnoticed to flaunt one’s intelligence. The birth of a new

social context is fundamental for the development of Chanel; in fact, the expansion of workers gives

visibility to work uniforms. In addition, the spread of new sports such as tennis, swimming, cycling,

skying and horse-back riding made it possible to create some pieces of clothing proper to these

purposes.

Coco Chanel knew how to present helself as the best interpreter of modern women’s

elegance, often wearing her own creations, following for her haute couture dresses the guidelines of

luxury, always detaching from the aristocratic emphasis thanks to her discreet and not flaunting

style that was still able to communicate social prestige through the attention given to details.

During her career, Chanel has made of modernity her core point, accepting, for example, to

dress up Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson during the

30’s, being the forerunner of all those stylists who decided to cooperate with the Cinema and

promote modernity through it.

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Chanel also understood the importance of the make-up industry and colognes to firm up the

image of the brand and increase incomes. In fact, today, the cologne Chanel N°5 – launched by

Coco in 1921 and based on a previous project of the perfumer Grasse Ernest Beaux that mixes

flower scents with new sintetic substances for the first time - is still one of the most sold and

evergreen colognes on a worldwide level, while the income of Chanel make up products makes up

for more than 90% of the maison’s total income. Witnessing the rapid changings in fashion after the

Second World War, Chanel was able to reinvent her style offering reassuring dresses to women

suffering from the aftermath of WWII, as the famous tailleurs worn by many women publically

exposed at that time, such as Jacqueline Kennedy or Grace of Monaco. In fact, if during the first

decades of the 1900 Coco’s creations were considered revolutionary, as the time went by her

proposals were more and more based on baroc and classic styles, with a simple silhouette enriched

by flashy details, such as buttons, chain and jewels, and it’s right for this reason that Roland Barthes

uses the word chic to define the style just inaugurated by Chanel.

Chanel had to update her reference values, she had to stop supporting women’s

emancipation and start idealizing woman’s figure through an abstract, ethereal and inmaterial

vision. This means that the classic influence affected Chanel’s aesthetics more and more, heavily

contributing to the connotation of an evergreen brand all over the world.

III.4. FASHION DURING THE 1930’S

The original and transgressive style of Elsa Schiaparelli was counterposed to Chanel’s

linearity. With the opening in Paris of the Atelier Pour le Sport in 1924 by Elsa, new pullovers with

very big trompe-l’oeil bows were launched, as well as t-shirts decorated with fishes, US marine

corp-style tattoos, zodiac signs and human skeleton’s bones. But Elsa was particularly attracted by

visual and figurative arts, especially by the surrealistic movement, and thus promotes cooperations

with important artists such as Salvador Dalì, with whom she tailores a tailleur with drawers instead

of pockets, just like Dali did in his Venus de Milo with drawers in 1936.

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In 1938 she also launches Shocking, a parfume with the bottle shaped as the silhouette of a

woman, which name recalled her invention of the “Shocking Pink”, a color she invented, inspired to

the shades of pink used in the pictures of Bébé Bérard, a famous painter. A very important

phenomenon for the development of fashion in those years was the opening of “cinemas” in big

American malls, where you could find models of dresses worne by Hollywood cinema stars. The

cinema thus becomes a fundamental tool in the creation and setting up of new clothing trends, such

as the imposition of the brand new, middle length haircut à la page, which definitely replaces the

old school haircut à la garçonne.

Salvatore Ferragamo was working in Hollywood and showed himself gifted when it came to

fashion: he knew how to use Italy’s symbols, synonym of quality and art, to make his products

more desirable to American clients. That is why he decided to go back to Italy, take advantage of

the world famous handcrafts and write “Florence” on the label, aware of Americans’ passion for

this city. Ferragamo’s boom occurred in 1937 with the launch of the so-called wedge heel and, ten

years later, of the invisible sandal characterized by weaved nylon strings.

III.5. DIOR AND THE FRENCH HAUTE COUTURE IN THE AFTERMATH OF WWII

When Paris was invaded by German troops, the activity of the haute couture boosting center

was blocked for four years but, from August 1944, the city started to recover. The launch of the first

collection of Christian Dior was characterized by the opulency and the somptuosity of the so-called

new look, able to answer to the luxury and elegance needs emerged after the repression of WWII.

Dior, as well as Chanel, owns part of his fame to the cinema and to his role as costume designer

during the climax of the cinema noir that not only saw Hollywood adopting a more realistic

language, but also introducing the dark ladies or femmes fatales, beautiful and seductive but also

cruel and ruthless women.

Thanks to the great fame of Dior, after WWII French Haute Couture received the right boost

that allowed it to the be the forerunner of fashion trends and be among the top 5 world brands

during the 1950’s with couturiers such as Balenciaga, Givenchy and Balmain.

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IV.ITALIAN HAUTE COUTURE

IV.1. FIRST ATTEMPTS FOR EMANCIPATION

The textile sector played a leading role during the Italian industrial revolution and the great

economic and social importance of this sector fostered the creation of a kind of fashion that did not

depend on France. Fascism hindered the importation of French clothes too cause it was not in

compliance with its nationalist policy. Given that Italy had the raw materials to produce itself silk,

hemp and linen, but not iuta, wool and cotton, the regime pushed the production of artificial fabrics

such as rayon and cisalfa.

Italian Cinema undergoes a strict censorship too, that had imposed the use of outfits of

national production. Fascism also promotes a cultural battle to impose the traditional model of the

woman as “mother and perfect wife” able to give birth to “sons of the Motherland”, compared to the

transgressive model of the skinny and neuter garçonne. It was only after WWII that Italian haute

couture tailors started emancipating from the French leading model and standards. On a cultural

level, what influenced the most the development of an independent Italian fashion was the richness

of the Italian national art patrimony that raised the awareness of people towards aesthetics, as well

as the strong power of Catholicism, that in churches has always included art and social rituality,

unlike protestant religion that used to be very strict. Last but not least, the typical variety of Italian

climate and landscapes, its people and their habits and customs, the cohabitation of the old and the

new triggered a matching of colors and flavors as well as the use of different materials etc without

ever running the risk of being too extravagant or excessive.

The triumph of Haute Couture would not have been possible without the strong

competitiveness in the quality-price relation. In fact, low costs of handcrafting allowed it to impose

prices on the final goods that were 50% cheaper than the French counterpart. In addition, Italians

differed from the French for a wide offer of sporty and leisure time activity’s clothes that

immediately caught the attention of American women.

IV.2. ROME AND ITS DOLCE VITA

At the end of the 1950’s and the beginning of the 1960’s, Rome becomes the new

protagonist of Italian fashion especially thanks to the collective imagination of via Veneto and its

Dolce Vita. Once again, the role played by the cinema and Cinecittà was fundamental, bringing to

the Eternal City a good part of Hollywood stars that started discovering Italian tailors. The fame of

the sisters Fontana, in fact, was due to their style characterized by a Romantic taste dating back to

the end of the XVIII century and the beginning of the XIX century.

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A traditional silhouette characterized Italian fashion of the 50’s, although Italian couturiers

specialized in what they were gifted and what they had long studied and practiced: laces, crochets,

fabric production. The society felt the need to forget the disasters of the war and the collective

imagination was reassured by maternal figures such as Gina Lollobrigida, Sofia Loren, the so-called

well-endowed women or Maggiorate. But these actresses used to wear haute couture dresses in

private and during the film they used to dress up as the average Italian woman, humble, in

accordance with the role they played. Italian women couldn’t afford haute couture so they started a

sort of auto production and imitation of these dresses, a determinant factor for the spread of cheap

clothing offered by big stores like Upim (founded in 1919), and Standa (1931), Max Mara and the

textile financial Group were the first introducing tailored clothes in stardardized sizes.

V. PRET-A-PORTER

V.1. PRET-A-PORTER AND THE YOUTH REVOLUTION

During the 60’s, youngsters always looking for new forms of evasion and having - for the

first time - free time as well as a wage to spend, reached the egemony in the socio-cultural field

being the real protagonists of public life thus representing an ideal point of reference for the

consumption culture, exploiting the communicative role of mass media. The new values they

proposed, such as dynamism and freedom, transformed the elegance of haute couture in something

obsolete and awkward whereas the dress, from being a social distinction, was transformed into

something to satisfy one’s need of seduction. That was reached through the introduction of true

colors, flower printings, bold matchings, longer haircuts, heavy make ups, plastic jewels,

transparent shirts, weed heeled shoes, mini skirts and tights of every different color. The “physic”

relation between the photographer and the model Verushka in the movie “Blow Up” (1966) set in

London (which was considered the capital of these movements), perfectly embodies the explosive

energy expressed by the new youth culture looking for the most complete freedom of bodies and

sexuality, thus creating a new informal style: the so-called casual style.

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The youth revolution occurred thanks to a redistribution of goods within the society - that

allowed middle classes to have a greater amount of resources - as well as to the spread of academic

education that led to a rising in the style. A new middle bourgeoise class reaching the threshold of

wealth starts claiming a “democratic” fashion, refusing the inner luxury and obstentation of haute

couture. This style finds its way into Italy later than in other countries, and the first changing their

styles where young men and women belonging to weaker classes who did not have a rigid education

and cultural background thus were more inclined and likely to follow this innovative, pop, models.

V.2.THE OUTSET OF PRET-A-PORTER

The answer of the fashion system to the need of younger generations to use a more free and

democratic style is the Pret-à-Porter. It was founded in France with the aim of producing tailored

dresses at reasonable and affordable prices, which were stylistically innovative with particular

attention to details. During the 60’s, the Pret-à-Porter gave itself a specific and transgressive

identity, founding a new generation of fashion designers: Daniel Hecher, Jean Chacharel, Mary

Quant ecc.

The first couturier of this new generation is Pierre Cardin, followed by Yves Saint-Laurent,

apprentice of Dior, the first proposing for women typical manly pieces of clothing such as tuxedo,

Saharan jacket and raincoats. The style of that movement abandons curves and introduces straight

lines, recalling the vehicles of spatial conquests dominating the collective imagination. Among

them, André Courrèges was considered shocking for his short and geometric style; in addition, he

frees women from high heels, bras and tight dresses perfectioning miniskirts invented by Mary

Quant in 1961 in London.

With the success of the Pret-à-Porter, the haute couture was becoming less and less popular.

So haute couture managers decided to introduce, always in accordance with its prestige, what was

widely in use in the Pret-à-Porter: trousers, for instance. Also today haute couture does not produce

haute couture dresses any more but aims at an evergreen, endlessly elegant, image and its purpose is

to promote Pret-à-Porter and make ups because haute couture itself sells only something like 3,000

dresses per year all around the world.

V.3. THE SO-CALLED MADE IN ITALY

During the 60’s people neglected the care of their body in favor of the greater attention to

that huge amount of values spread by the big wave of social and cultural protests generated during

1968, as well as to problems rose by the dramatic economic crisis.

The couturier tries to find out what are the new trends by looking at society, at artistic

vanguards, urban tribes and etnical cultures, he makes them match and brings them to the industry.

During the 80’s, Italian Pret-à-Porter becomes famous thanks to the bound created with the Italian

textile industry which allowed an incredible development of the textile sector: Como, Capri, Prato,

Biella were only some of the several benchmarks. The reasons of the success of this industrial

model are to be found in its ability to identify, gather and express the discontent of many people.

We must also say that, at the same time, society was changing and a new middle class was

paving its way to success: urban young professionals of the advanced third sector were looking for

quality and innovation, therefore Pret-à-Porter brands adopt a strictly personal logic whose symbol

is the brand itself. In fact the couturier, by giving an inequivocable identification image, becomes a

sort of guide for the choosing of the piece of clothing. And this is how many Italian brands reached

success during the 80’s.

V.4. ELIO FIORUCCI

In 1967 he opens in Milan, in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, his first store, a sort of bazaar

offering a bit of everything to young people: ridiculously cheap shoes, dresses, thigts and

accessories. His jeans are the real innovation: detailed and well cut, made in denim, they became

famous for their high vestibility. His jeans can also be considered as the first brand jeans too.

Fiorucci was the pioneer in the use of t-shirts’ free front space as a blank page to fill in to send no

matter what kind of message.

V.5. VALENTINO

In 1959 he opens his first haute couture atelier in via dei Condotti, in Rome. Valentino

Garavani presented in his collection a romantic yet extremely elegant woman. A constant in his

creations is the use of a particular shade of red named after him. He was known worldwide for the

“pathologic” attention he gave to details, a sort of obsession let’s say.

V.6.MISSONI

In 1953, Ottavio and Rosita Missoni create their company that is still today one of the few

remaining family businesses. One of the characterizing elements is the so-called put together. A

superimposition of points and stamps appearantly casual, but carely projected in detail mixing zig-

zag, lines, flames and circles, and adding uncommon colors such as tamarind, prewinkle blue, ochre

and wisteria purple.

V.7. FENDI

The 5 Fendi sisters, heiresses of the leather and furs laboratory founded in 1925 by their

parents, shaked up the concept of furs during the 60’s, minimizing and transforming it from a heavy

piece of clothing to precious haute couture. They collaborated with and took advantage of great

couturiers like Karl Lagerfeld that patended the black “double F” logo on a mug brown background.

In 1997 they created the Baguette, a bag with a small shoulder strap to be carried under the armpit

and that received enourmous success.

V.8. VERSACE

Gianni Versace founds his brand in 1977 with his brother Santo and his sister Donatella. A

head of Medusa represents the brand that used to mix modernity and tradition, with a decidive yet

aggressive style that was able to match easily metal and plastic, silk and Swarosky, without being

vulgar. Versace was the first saying that to better communicate the image of a brand you needed the

best photographers and you had to let them choose the models to walk the catwalk. This is how top

models were born, characterized by a kind of success and fame they had never been given before.

V.9.DOLCE & GABBANA

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana present their first women collection in Milan in

1985, contrasting the image of a Mediterranean woman - inspired to neorealist cinema characters -

to that of a manager woman reigning at that time. They were able to do so only by skilfully

matching Sicilian baroc and erotic components of female clothing: slips, bras and bustier where

shamelessly shown off.

V.10.GIORGIO ARMANI AND POSTMODERN FASHION

He starts off his career as a window dresser at the Rinascente, then he was hired as a stylist

in 1964 by Hitman, the men clothing company of Nino Cerruti. This working period is fundamental

to understand the focus of Armani’s brand. Here he enters in contact with the new reality of Pret-à-

Porter that had transformed haute couture dresses in industrial stock production aiming at meeting

the consumers’ needs. In the company he’s working for, Armany starts experimenting on the men

black jacket – still enclosed into rigid schemes at that time – and finds out that to get rid of these

schemes he had to work on fabrics, details and proportions, stating in an interview:

“I focused on the jacket as I think it did not exault the body and its sensuality. I want the

shape of the body to stand out through the suit, so I started tailoring jackets and making them tigher

especially on the waist, and enlarging the shoulders: in this way the figure would be more slender.

Then I got rid of the lining too for a greater comfort.”1

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Armani simplified the suit, got rid of the over decorative elements focusing more on

wearability and comfort. He tried to overcome the tradition rigidity of the suit dissacrating men

jackets, modifying proportions, moving buttons, lowering reverses and avoiding linings and so

forth. He started using soft and thin fabrics - traditionally linked to dresses – as well as elegant and

discreet colors: light grey and beige, not really imitating but rather inspired by his ideal of jacket:

Chanel. In 1975 he presents his first destructured jacket for men: no lining and not ironed, he opens

new horizons to men style refusing any comparison with professional uniforms but being more

attractive, sensual, young and vaguely feminine.

1 (cit. in Brognara et al., 1990, pp. 122-3)

During the 80’s, Armani applies to men jackets the same specific technique that was being

applied to architecture at that time: a destructuration of the work of art, that couldn’t be considered

as something unitary and defined any more. He was the first saying that clothing had to match the

new, increasing attention for the body care, bearing in mind the roles played by men and women in

society, so trying to strengthen women and mild men.

As for women, Armani proposes loose jackets with big shoulders for a discreet and humble

femininity, and his style is mainly welcomed by “business women”, emancipated, born in the 70’s,

that needed a style that attracted men but, at the same time, intimidated them.

Picture 15

As well as Chanel, Armani has always given great importance to the bond with the cinema,

whether for the mere advertising aspects, but also for the stimula it has given to couturiers with its

gloomy Hollywood atmospheres of the 20’s and 30’s. Armani’s great attention for the consumer’s

needs led him to the creation of a second branch of the brand: in 1981 he founded Emporio Armani.

This brand became immediately popular because it had the same stylistic quality of the Armani top

level collection, but it was sold at more reasonable and affordable prices.

VI. A NEW FASHION SYSTEM

VI.1. FASHION IN THE 90’S

Already in the 80’s, several Japanese stylists had become popular standing aloof from an

aggressive and sophisticated woman, typical of the western world. So Issey Miyake, Yohji

Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, stylist of the famous French brand Comme des Garçons, started

considering women dresses as something poor and shapeless, wrapping the body in a series of

clothing stratifications: they mixed a sort of intellectual and sophisticated neopauperism with the

traditional and minimalist aesthetics of the Japanise Zen culture.

Picture 16

In the second half of the 80’s, the Italian couturier Romeo Gigli proposes a fashion against

the schemes: minimalist and meant for a thin, slender woman, with minute shoulders, long skirts

and oriental slippers. After the Wall Street crisis in 1987 and with the upcoming of the 90’s, the

Italian fashion system manages to transform these proposes in Pret-à-Porter, through Japanese

markets. In the entire western world, everyone loses hopes for himself and for the future, in a

situation in which wealth no longer means security, leading consumers to look for greater quality

and buy classic clothes. During the 90’s, the refusal of stylistic excesses as well as a critic economic

situation, led to a minimalist style characterized by dark colors, mainly black. So the consumer

passes from a compulsive search for latest news, to a new, long lasting, evergreen style,

undermining the changeability of fashion itself that starts organizing in a stable system, based on a

small number of consolidated styles. This phenomenon has also been the result of a transformation

process of a former system based on the brand to a new one having its roots in companies

specialized in the production of luxury goods.

Probably, all this situation occurs because fashion has nothing new to offer to consumers, so

the history of fashion itself becomes a tank to draw ideas: we witness the creation of the vintage

style, second-hand, brand dresses as well as limited editions, reproposal of models already proposed

on the market in the past.

VI.2. GUCCI

The brand, founded in 1921 in Florence by Guccio Gucci, was able to effectively express a

kind of fashion recovering some status principles, thus creating “symbolic objects” such as the bag

with the bamboo handle (1947), the classic moccasin with the metal horse-bit (1952), or the “Flora”

silk foulard (1966), created for Grace Kelly. Starting from the 60’s, Gucci proposes a posh, luxury,

bourgeois style. Right after that, though, he trivialized its image by lending its brand to a number of

products without giving the right attention to quality. Always during the 90’s, the American stylist

Tom Ford became the creation manager of the company and started rejuvenating a brand that was

destined to circle the drain. He did so by leaving aside “business women” and focusing more on a

broader citizen of the world with a fine style, drawing ideas also from the fetish and S&M universes

to reach a fusion of seduction and minimalism. Mr. Ford’s collections are meant for a woman who

is super self confident, sexy, aggressive, determined, and she knows it.

VI.3. PRADA

Beside the sensual and aggressive women proposed by Gucci, there was also something else

revolutionizing haute couture with a sophisticated and vanguarding style. Prada proposed a strong

identity able to allow consumers all around to world to express concepts and thoughts rather then to

wear mere forms and decorations. As Chanel, Prada does not draw dresses but thinks them. Prada’s

fil rouge was a sort of exasperation of the refusal of the trend: Prada models in fact did not represent

the ideals of wealth and beauty, but tried to get as close as possible to everyday life women. We

could thus say that like Chanel, Prada’s fashion was a paradox, being at the same time luxurious

and democratic. During the 80’s, businesswomen had found their dimension in Armani’s

destructured jacket.

Prada’s trivial style, on the other hand, seems to be in line with the most advanced level of

maturity reached by women; they are now more self confident and do not need a uniform defending

or representing them. It is no wonder then that also Prada recalled the 60’s and the 70’s, depuring

them and making them abstract and aseptic, also under the point of view of sensuality. At a first

sight, Prada’s dresses do not look minimalist because, as happened with Chanel, they hide a baroc

nature when it comes to details (stitchings, zips, etc).

VI.4. VUITTON AND HERMÈS

During the 90’s, the market of luxury goods increased sharply. At the basis of this

phenomenon, there is an increasing social legitimacy of one’s pleasure and an unprecedented rush

towards it. There are no longer the stumbling blocks of the moral taboos linked to traditional

culture. Furthermore, consumers started looking more and more for quality products.

This expansion was probably due to the difficulties of traditional criteria when defining people’s

social role: hierarchies are no longer rigid, borders between social classes start to fade and those

products taken as symbol of a given status are used by individuals to flaunt their social position.

And this was the need of the latest social elite born during the 90’s in the western world: we are

talking about new managers enriched thanks to the boom of the new economy and the Stock

exchange. This elite - instead of hiding their wealth - tried to show off through luxury consumption

their new social status. This development of the luxury market allowed the expansion as well as the

strengthening of companies already existing and with a long lasting tradition. And this goes for the

French group LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), which has been the luxury sector’s

undisputed leader for many years. The founder of the company, Luis Vuitton, had a very peculiar

job: during the second half of 1800 he went up to rich travellers of that era to pack their clothes into

their suitcases to avoid wrinkles, and the aristocracy throughout Paris wanted his services.

After the endless attempts of imitation of his suitcases he founded in 1888, together with his

son Georges, the world famous canva print: cotton rubbed with pumpernickel glue to make it more

resistant and waterproof, with a L and a V printed. Another very important firm of the luxury sector

today is Hermès, founded in 1837 by Thierry Hermès to produce saddles but later on covered all the

products of the fashion world. Starting from 2003, the pret-à-porter women collection is designed

by Jean-Paul Gaultier, l’enfant terrible of French fashion. Ties and foulards are the most

outstanding products of this brand, as well as bags such as the Kelly – famous because Grace Kelly,

when she was pregnant, tried to hide her pregnancy from photographers with her bag – or the

Birkin, a big and resistant bag meant for working mothers and inspired to the actress Jane Birkin.

Picture 17

VI.5. A NEW REFERENCE POINT IN FASHION

In recent years, two big giants of the sector have controlled the distribution of clothing

products: the Swedish H&M and the Spanish Zara. These chains owe their success to the

introduction of the so-called fast fashion.

Such model revolutionated the world of the pret-à-porter and of the traditional 6-month

deadline of fashion, introducing the principle of temporal continuity by integrating the collections

monthly. By doing so they not only offered authomatic proposals close enough for the stylistic

content to those of the mid and entry level collections of great couturiers (like Armani, etc) but also

stimulated consumers to buy new items not for necessity but led by an authomatic impulse. Thanks

to this policy, products prices are low and the offer of items is renewed monthly. Rather than cheap

prices all this process offers to the modern consumer a cheap psychological price as he is aware

that, although he buys something wrong, he did not spend much money. In a certain way he feels

inadeguate in front of such a wide and rapidly changing choice, imposing a quick choice too, but he

also feels reassured by the low psychological investment needed.

In a certain way this fast fashion model can be considered as the third model of the evolution

process of modern fashion, following haute couture and pret-à-porter.

VII. INFORMAL FASHION

VII.1. SPORTSWEAR

During the 80’s several sport as well as open-air activities had inspired daily fashion:

horseback riding (Husky), sailing (Henry Lloyd), hunting (Barbour), woodcutters (Timberland), etc,

all pieces of clothings that widened the casual sector of fashion, usually linked to leisure time.

Casual was transformed and became sportweat, a range of clothing meant for urban consumers who

love comfort, practicality and flexibility. It is no wonder then that sportswear became the second or

third class of the collections of many couturiers. This was introduced by the informal wave

introduced by youth generations during the 60’s, to the amazing diffusion of jeans as well as the

increasing global success of sport activities.

The fact that the American culture is enjoying the favor of people on a worldwide level also

influenced the welcoming of sportswear. It is no wonder that the so-called Friday wear – that is the

opportunity given to American companies’ employees to wear informal clothes on Fridays – is

becoming more and more common outside of the US and that the typical American informal style is

increasingly influencing fashion.

In recent years the US influenced a lot the rest of the world as far as the common wearability

of brand clothes of great stylists is concerned: Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, etc.

VII.2. LEVI’S AND THE MYTH OF JEANS

From the US we also get jeans, which have represented the symbol of informal style for

more than a century and they have been considered such thanks to their versatility. According to

tradition, jeans were created in March 14th 1853 when Levi Strauss, a 24-year-old boy with Jewish

origins immigrated to the United States and went to San Francisco where he experienced the core of

the gold rush. The fact that he came from a Jewish family was very important for Levi Strauss

because in the centuries selling fabrics was considered something very humble and allowed just to

Jewish people, which therefore developed a particular hability in this sector.

Levi Strauss golden intuition was that of mass-producing trousers following a number of

given sizes. The only thing he had was a khaki colored tent fabric, and he started using it to produce

the first trousers, at that time known as overalls (the word jeans was probably coined after the city

of Genoa – where this kind of fabric was commercialized – and was introduced only during the

1930’s). We do not know when exactly the actual shape and cut of the jeans was created because a

big fire caused by the great earthquake of 1906 destroyed the archive. We have reasons to think

though that it underwent many changes during the years: some not functional elements have been

inserted, although they were considered something very typical. We are talking about the copper

rivet on top of the pockets, the patch saying the brand, the model and the size with two horses

stretching a pair of jeans introduced in 1936.

Even though Levi’s started advertising its products in 1882, progressively lost the monopoly

of jeans production. It was flanked by Lee that introduced the zyp replacing buttons in 1926 and by

Wrangler, that introduced the overall in 1906 and the sanforizing – a process through which it is

possible to limit the shrinkage of jeans’ first washing (it was probably named after the city of

Nimes, in which it was created).

Starting from 1930’s jeans became even more popular: born as a work uniform for West

workers, they became the leisure time uniform of every American thanks to a number of factors

among which we list the high accessibility and cheap price, the increasing attention towards leisure

time activities, the creation of mass consumption, the mechanization of industrial production and

the impressive and sharp growth of the middle class.

The third and most important step of the history of jeans started in the aftermaths of the

Second World War, with a particular scope on Europe. American soldiers’ leisure time clothing

produced by Levi’s became the symbol of the wealth and freedom expressed by the United States at

that time. They were considered the nation who had won the war and had brought jeans, Coke,

chewing gums, nylon tights, Hollywood movies and, last but not least, rock’n’roll.

Another important step to understand the history of jeans are the years in between the 60’s

and the 70’s, when they became the uniform of youth movements and of the Woodstock generation.

Jeans became something to favor sex equality thanks to the democratic values they expressed.

Today jeans have lost these specific meaning and are considered something socially and universally

indifferentiated, a classic piece of clothing opposing, with its stability, to all the ups and downs of

fashion. Same goes for the T-shirt that, starting from 1942 – year in which the US Marine

established a basic model and adopted it for millions of its members. Jeans have played and still

play such a fundamental role in our societies that can be considered the most widespread and

popular piece of clothing on earth.

VII.3. ADIDAS, NIKE AND REEBOK: SPORT’S CHARME

Sport shoes (hereinafter referred as trainers or sneakers) have increasingly originated a

symbolic and commodity related universe associated to sport and particularly inclined to sync with

youth’s fashions. Such universe influences daily clothing as well: in fact, it is pretty impressive if

we think that up to a century ago, trainers were considered poor and humble shoes associated to

thieves and criminals. In 1895 William Foster - a high ranked athlete - found a firm in Bolton (UK)

to produce the football boots he had invented. Later on he passed his firm to his nephews who

decided to call it Reebok (named after the name of an African antelope). In 1908, marquise

Converse found in Massachussetts a firm named after him and launched in 1907 the first pair of All

Star, which were used until the 1960’s by basketball players and became very popular in the US. In

1926 Dassler family founded in Germany the Dassler Schufabrik, which shoes were worn by many

athletes for the Olympic games in 1928, 1932 and 1936. After splitting the company, the two

brothers Adi and Rudi Dassler founded Adidas and Puma. Adidas was a sort of leader in the world

market of the 70’s also thanks to the easily recognizable brand with the 3 parallel stripes. Nike was

founded in the 70’s by Phil Knight, an accountant, and Bill Bowerman, working as a coach at the

Oregon State University.

In 1972 there was the foundation of the world famous brand, Nike, named after the Greek

goddess of victory as the young designer of the brand told he had dreamt with this winged goddess

and also because the word nike was easy to pronounce in many languages. During the 80’s and the

90’s there was a sharp hike in the market demand of sporting clothes and shoes. Trainers underwent

many transformations until becoming sneakers, sporty shoes with an extremely technologic and

expressive design. Whereas Adidas was meant for professional runners, Nike oriented its strategies

towards beginner runners and amateurs. This explains why at the end of the 70’s Nike produced

half of the running shoes sold, and the main competitors were Adidas and Reebok. In the following

years, long tank tops and high top shoes became a must for young black afro-american men and hip

hoppers, influencing white people in the suburbs. In addition, thanks to the success of aerobics in

the early 80’s, women started practicing sports building a new market: Reebok foresaw this

phenomenon, and was the first brand creating products meant for women.

Picture 18

VIII. STREET FASHION

VIII.1. YOUTH’S SUBCULTURES

Starting from 1960, fashion innovations created by youngsters started being considered as a

reference point for the fashion industrial system. Such reference point became particularly

important thanks to the “democratization” of the pret-à-porter, especially during the 80’s and the

90’s. So, between youth fashions and industrial realities there was no longer a contrast but an

endless and mutual enriching relation. Youth fashions developed mainly on the street. It was right

on the street that young people started gathering in “bands”, creating subcultures characterized by

the sharing of some given values, opinions, behaviors and by the creation of peculiar expressive

ways, the so called street styles. Subcultures had the centrality of the body as the main common

value. Young people have always disguised, decorated and even manipulated their body but, above

all, they have dressed it up because clothes have always been a way to communicate through the

body.

We can consider zooties as the very first youth subculture. It was a social movement of

black and Hispanic dandies who, in the 1940’s, in Harlem, developed a specific identity through the

use of some objects and pieces of clothing, as the zoot, an extravagant men suit with a very long

jacket and very baggy trousers, from which they were named after. Generally though, youth

subcultures are thought to date back to 1947, year in which a bunch of young bikers, aggressive

motorbike riders wearing jeans, boots and leather jackets (the studded jacket, produced from 1915

by the American company Schott) gathered in Hollister, California, and messed around. During the

second half of the 60’s, the hippy movement – a peaceful and antimilitarist group – recovered and

developed in California the beat philosophy, making it more popular through society. Such

movement hated everything that was related to modern times and industrialization, refused the

proposals of official fashion and recalled ethnic cultures – mainly oriental cultures – as well as the

past, favoring natural fabrics such as cotton, linen and hemp.

VIII.2. PUNK

Punk subculture is, by far, the most expressive among all subcultures. It was founded by

Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood: they used to ran, starting from 1971, a small clothing

store in London named “Let It Rock”, then renamed as “Seditionaries”, a word game between

“seduction” and “sedition”; then again renamed as “Sex” and finally “World’s End”.

Picture 19

Punk is mainly a social movement exploded during the summer 1976 in London, although

preceded by a number of immature manifestations in the US. But it is undoubtedly in the store of

McLaren and Westwood that Sex Pistols were formed, being one of the most famous music groups

of the punk subculture. The word punk means something “rotten and of scarce value”, because

punkers considered themselves as “white blacks”, individuals confined at the edge of society. A

kind of exclusion created by themselves as they all had a disgusting and shocking aspect. With their

clothes they wanted to personify and bring to the extreme those ideas of economic crisis pervading

the mass media of the British society in the mid 70’s. They used to wear unmatching colors, shabby,

unsewed and ripped up or black leather S&M clothes.

They ran through their bodies with pins, they wound it with cigarettes and used razor blades

to cut their arms, endlessly humiliating themselves to express how powerless they felt towards

society. They were anarchists and nichilists: they did not believe in progress, family and

institutions. They usually refused heavy drugs but used amphetamines as indispensable to stay up

without eating food and to be able to play the kind of music they were into. They lived on the street

and they did not feel the need to defend their territory as happened in the tradition of bands in the

ghettos of big metropolis.

Picture 20

Their style was rather cinetic and transitive: they look at objects as a tool and not as a goal to

reach, as they focused more on the upsetting of the meaning of a given object.

VIII.3. A SUPERMARKET OF STYLES

Starting from the end of the 70’s an unprecedented subculture developed: we are talking

about the hip-hop. It is a phenomenon born in the ghettos of American metropolis among afro-

american communities. Hip hop’s main features were sneakers, baggy sweatshirts and trousers,

hoodies, baseball caps, flashy rings and chains and, last but not least, rap music – an indissoluble

mix of sounds, rythms and words.

Picture 21

This subculture was characterized by a strong politic connotation - the willing to be

considered a sort of protest - but also by the use of new expressive strategies such as graffiti on

urban walls and the so-called break dance. They transformed the aggressiveness of black guys of

metropolitan gangs into non-violent creativity. In the early 80’s appeared in Milan the first

paninari, the first Italian subculture named after the bar “il panino” of piazza Liberty where they

used to gather. Paninari represented a further step forward in the evolution of youth subcultures as

their bond with media was even more direct and intense. It is no wonder that they had a pretty short

life, absorbed by the strong flow of mediatization. At the beginning the momevent was started by a

bunch of young boys living in the center of Milan and belonging to mid-high social classes and who

refused their traditional elegant style favoring a ruder and more masculine one. They met the fame

when the pieces of clothing they used to wear became popular: Timberland shoes and Moncler

quilted jackets.

Starting from Milan, paninari spread to other Italian cities as well as foreing metropolis such

as London and Paris. We will have to wait for about a decade to see the upcoming of a new relevant

youth subculture: the grunge. Founded in the environmentally-friendly city of Seattle, the grunge

style – grunge meaning creased and dirty – was looking for comfort. They often used second hand

clothes and mainly wore checked flannel shirts, long skirts, loose pull overs, cut and ripped up

jeans, sneakers and heavy boots. Despite its aestethics inspired by the dirt and the old, youngsters

belonging to this subculture shared positive values of love.

IX. CONCLUSION

What seems to be the main trend of all subcultures is the progressive elimination of bonds

with the territory. And it is thanks to this kind of strategies that subcultures today tend to be freer to

act in order to ensure themselves that fundamental value that is authenticity. A single subculture

spread on a worldwide level and unified in the style by the sharing of codes typical of the

skateboard, snowboard, surf and many other extreme sports seems to be increasingly finding its way

into society.

A kind of subculture partially influenced by hip-hop and that has developed a technological

aspect extremely functional that is often taken into consideration by industries and stylists. Thus it

tends to create a single undefined world where there are no official borders between formality and

informality, between street and industries: a world that, no wonder, has been called street wear. It is

not really a style but rather a concept