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This article introduces the special issue "Transatlantic literary transfers in the Second Italian Renaissance: the circulation of Italian culture in the U.S. in the Post-war Era", presenting new knowledge on the collaborative, transnational network that emerged between Italy and the U.S. in the post-war years and facilitated the circulation of Italian literary products in the U.S. By considering literary objects as a special class of products that participated to the establishment and consolidation of "Made in Italy", and by showing how Italian literary cultures functioned as vectors of a "new" Italian modernity, the article claims that the success of "Made in Italy" was due in no small part to a storytelling strategy that emphasized: (1) the strong friendship between the two nations in the context of the new, globalized world; and (2) the mobilization of the trope of the Renaissance in the service of a projected continuity between Italian early and "new" modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L'articolo esplora il contributo di Gio Ponti alla definizione postbellica dell'immagine italiana Oltreatlantico attraverso la ricostruzione della collaborazione dell'architetto con le ditte di arredamento Singer & Sons e Altamira. L'identità italiana è declinata nei due casi con sfumature diverse, come diverse sono le due aziende. Singer è una ditta affermata che guardando a un pubblico medio-alto borghese chiede a Ponti progetti semplici e razionali, anche se più vivaci rispetto all'austerità dell'International Style. Altamira è una ditta recente e spregiudicata, più in sintonia col lato capriccioso e sofisticato di Ponti, che risolve la rivalità tra le due imprese distinguendo tra una produzione sobria per Singer e una ricca e creativamente più libera per Altamira. Il secondo orientamento finirà per prevalere gli occhi del pubblico americano, assecondando la costruzione di un'immagine artigianale-decorativa del design italiano e conseguentemente la sua femminilizzazione, tendente a neutralizzarne il potenziale competitivo rispetto alla produzione statunitense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first high fashion show organized in Florence in 1951 represented an important event for the development of the Italian fashion sector, increasing the importance of the fashion industry in international trade. Research in economic business history has identified this period as crucial for the advent of the 'Made in Italy' label. The article aims to understand if and how the high fashion shows organized in Florence between 1951 and 1967 influenced the emergence of the Italian fashion industry and the concept of 'Made in Italy'. Supported by data collected from the historical archive 'Italian Fashion Archive of Giovanni Battista Giorgini' and three online archives of digitalized books and newspapers, the analysis sheds light on the perception of the national and international press on the cultural phenomena of Italian fashion and 'Made in Italy'. Results reveal an increasing trend in the frequency of terms related to the Italian fashion industry coinciding with the years of the Florentine events. The analysis evidences the crucial role of the entrepreneurial activity of Giovanni Battista Giorgini, buyer and organizer of the first Italian high fashion show in Florence, for the emergence of the Italian fashion industry and 'Made in Italy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 they are today, as is also the case for labels such as "Made in Italy." Disrupting the traditional narratives of fashion, a growing awareness among consumers has questioned the ethics of the imagery brands disseminate on the internet and of products that degrade race, gender and religious belief. Following these lines and drawing on fashion and translation studies, I would like to offer a critical examination of the relationship between the Harlem based designer Dapper Dan and the house of Gucci. In particular, the essay highlights the notion of difference inherent in the process of translation as it is practiced by minoritarian groups, which as a result become socially visible. One of the questions posed in the paper is how can cultural translation actually be practiced in order to change existing power relations regulating class, gender and race, rather than consolidate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the economic and socio-cultural impact of Italian investments and business in the United Stated from the 1980s onwards. It investigates flows, networks and ideas that have cut national boundaries and politically-defined spaces. The article argues that the last three decades of Italian investments and business in the USA have re-defined the symbolic space held by Italy and Italians in the American imagination. It also argues that the distinctive Italian contribution to the American business environment lies in the so-called ‘fourth capitalism’ and in the family business aspects of Italian Capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Until 1950, Italian fashion did not exist: there were able tailors and creative designers, but they were known only as individuals and not as part of a wider movement that identified with a specific Italian style. Despite the existence of advanced skills, with the potential to realize an Italian fashion in its own right, there was neither a cultural identity to bind them together nor an international legitimization that would allow the new form to compete with the dominant haute couture of Paris. The revival of the Renaissance and its invention as an intangible asset was fundamental in resolving this ‘dual’ absence, and it therefore became a key factor in the international success of Italian fashion. From the 1950s to today – the period of increasing international success of the ‘Made in Italy’ label – in the rhetoric of entrepreneurs, managers and marketing experts, the Renaissance has become almost an integral part of the DNA of Italian fashion, itself at times represented as the direct descendant and legitimate heir of the excellence of Renaissance taste. This is a link, now taken for granted, for which a term has even been coined: the ‘Renaissance effect’. The fundamental argument that supports this so-called Renaissance effect is in fact that of the continuity between the craftsmanship of the Renaissance age and today's fashion houses; a continuity, however, that has been elaborated through ‘manipulations’ of history which are in part simplistic and in part distorted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 demarcation in the study of fashion that do not pertain solely to time but also to fields, disciplines and the other arts, as well as social and political domains; third, it raises the question of the relationship between fashion and nation. In examining how and when to establish the beginning or the origin of Italian fashion, the article argues for a long history of Italian fashion that stretches as far back as early modernity, thus reframing a number of historiographical questions. The article goes on to signal the difficulty involved in establishing neat points of ruptures and origins, and continuities in any historical or cultural spectrum in view of the porosity of national boundaries; and makes the case for considering fashion, both today's and that of yesteryear, in both its national and transnational dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The interest towards the role of user communities in innovation has grown among scholars and practitioners. Research has explored the role of communities in high-tech and medium-tech industries with a focus on innovation in the functional dimension of products. Less attention has been devoted to user communities' contribution in industries such as fashion, where innovation is much more related to communication and aesthetics. This paper provides a preliminary set of concepts and working hypotheses regarding the contribution of communities to the non-functional dimension of product innovation in low-tech industries and to the relationship between user involvement in brand communities and their incentives to contribute to innovation both tangible and intangible. The paper discusses two case studies of Made in Italy enterprises that refer to communities for their innovation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]