Creativity and Innovation of the Italian Fashion-System in the Interwar Period (1919 – 1943)

The aim of this research is to demonstrate how the Italian fashion system began to take form in the inter-war period. The focus of the research is centred on technical and stylistic innovations implemented especially during the fascist period. The most important innovations were recorded in the field of footwear, female accessories and men’s tailoring. The latter became a ground for experimentation with tailoring that led, in the long run, to the emancipation of Italian men’s fashion from the secular dependency on the British. Part of the research has been dedicated to the man-made fibre industry set up in the early Twenties, thanks to which Italy managed to become more independent and needed to import fewer raw materials for the textile industry. The research was carried out by making a systematic examination of fashion magazines, and particularly male fashion magazines, until now rarely used for the study of Italian fashion.