Eugenia Paulicelli

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor (Full) at Queens College, CUNY

Volume I surveys the long history of fashion from the ancient world to c. 1800. The volume seeks to answer fundamental questions on the origins of fashion, challenging Eurocentric explanations that the emergence of fashion was a European phenomenon and shows instead that fashion found early expressions across the globe well before the age of Europe...

In the last few years, a growing body of scholarship has identified the importance of race to explain and interrogate the power of fashion as a multibillion dollar manufacturing industry and as a strong symbolic force. Race, and more in general the politics of fashion, have never been so openly discussed in the fashion industry and in the media as...

This chapter traces the life and career of Italian shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo. Ferragamo’s life and work is a compelling story that helps us understand several cultural contexts and threads that link different worlds and industries: shoes and cinema; Italy and America; cultural heritage and national identity. Ferragamo’s career took him from...

Costume and fashion have been an integral component of Fellini’s artistic arsenal and have contributed greatly towards the layering and historical montage of his films. In this article, I will explore the historical implications of Fellini’s use of fashion and costume and the profound impact that they have had on the aesthetics and texture of his f...

A fascinating look at one of the most experimental, volatile, and influential decades, Film, Fashion, and the 1960s, examines the numerous ways in which film and fashion intersected and affected identity expression during the era. From A Hard Day’s Night to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, from the works of Ingmar Bergman to Blake Edwards, the groundbreakin...

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...

The article examines the concept of Made in Italy in the context of the long history of Italian fashion and Italian nation building. It wishes to pose some methodological questions: it argues for a more sophisticated understanding of Made in Italy, suggesting that it must be considered in relation to the complexity of the formation of an Italian st...

The first comprehensive study on the role of Italian fashion and Italian literature, this book analyzes clothing and fashion as described and represented in literary texts and costume books in the Italy of the 16th and 17th centuries. Writing Fashion in Early Modern Italy emphasizes the centrality of Italian literature and culture for understanding...

Since the time of medieval preachers such as Bernardino Da Siena, who condemned luxury, exaggeration and lack of modesty in dress (especially women’s), clothes have been powerful signs for communicating the social, gendered and public self in moral, religious and political contexts. Fashion has always been demonized by preachers and moralists, and...

A detailed analysis of material largely neglected by Italian dress historians and cultural critics, and practically unknown to Anglo-American scholars, the article illustrates the key role played by the discourse on fashion during the fascist regime. In particular, the article focuses on two sources: Cesare Meano's Commentario dizionario italiano d...

When we think of Italian fashion, Gucci, Max Mara and the meteoric rise of Prada immediately spring to mind. But Italian fashion has a dark history that has not previously been explored. The Fascism of 1930s Italy dominated more than just politics - it spilled over into modes of dress. Fashion under Fascism is the first book to consider this link i...

The essay offers an analysis of fashion and its bearing on the construction of national identity and politics of style during fascism in Italy. No recent work on fascism has analysed the role of fashion in the complex and contradictory phases of the cultural politics of Mussolini’s regime. The essay aims to illustrate the two sides of fashion and t...

Habitus, from the Latin habeo, corresponds both to “dress” and “way of being,” and as such opens up the possibility of a dialectic between these two terms.1 Clothes, in so far as they cover, adorn, and dress the body, bear the signs of a complex and ambiguous relationship with identity. An identity which is both hidden and suggested in the veil of...