The Glamour of Italian Fashion 1945 - 2014, V&A

The fascinating histories and transformations of Valentino, Missoni, Versace, Prada and many more legendary Italian fashion houses will be exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum this spring. 

Get ready to feast your eyes on some of the most beautiful haute-couture gowns of the 50s right the way up to the eclectic designs of this year’s Spring & Summer collections. This exhibition will be a comprehensive yet gloriously indulgent and colourful exploration of the rise of Italian fashion. 

But this was no straightforward rise. Looking in particular detail at the birth of the big brands in the 1950s, this exhibition juxtaposes of the glamour we’re familiar with today with the harsh reality of post-World War Two Italy: a poverty-stricken country exhausted after years of war and fascist dictatorship under Benito Mussolini. Fashion, says the V&A, brought Italy back to life, and gave it a new international identity. Soon designers were opening their doors to sell their unique wares and proffer their artisanal skills. 

Post-WW2, Hollywood swooped on Italy’s emerging design talent. Actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn became ambassadors of the Italian style and fostered close relationships with designers such as Salvatore Ferragamo – who, known for his popular shoe designs (look out for his Varra Pump), was one of the first designers to bridge the gap between the American and Italian fashion industries. 

It was for this reason that Italy came to overtake Paris as the fashion capital of the world. But it wasn’t just a shared taste for fashion that brought America and Italy together. The partnership also alleviated political tensions. Italy symbolized an oasis within an increasingly communized Europe, separated by the Iron Curtain. 

The American film industry strategically exorcised Italy and it was from this post-war era that the notion of Italian woman as the ‘most beautiful in the world’ emerged. The American romanticism of the Italian ‘war bride’ and ‘diva’ came to make an indelible mark in Hollywood film – think Gregory Peck in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit or the spectacular Sophia Loren in It Started in Naples. Soon everyone wanted that mediterranean, Italian flair, ‘la bella figura’ which balanced being sexy and elegant, modern, chic and feminine. 

Even today, fashion houses like Dolce & Gabbana still play up their ‘Italian-ness’. Check out their most recent designs: the S/S collection for 2014 features Italianate dresses with beautifully imprinted photographs of crumbling Roman ruins and Corinthian columns. 

The V&A’s exhibition is sponsored by Buglari: “an emblem of Italian creativity and craftsmanship”, and the director of the V&A, Martin Roth, has said: “this comprehensive exhibition will chronicle the development of the legendary Italian style…casting light on the less well known designers and stories as well as considering significant contribution made to the economy by its fashion and textile industries.”

The exhibition will give you a real sense of the history of Italian design, who wore it, and where it has been, from the classic Sala Bianca catwalk in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, to the set of Mankiewicz’s 1963 Anthony and Cleopatra.