The relationship between the US and Italian fashion

May 18, 2023 – We are excited to present The May event dedicated to Italian fashion. Guest speaker Marcella Martin, coming expressly to Charleston for our event.
Ever since the famed Sala Bianca fashion shows in 1952, Italian fashion has captured the American market and imagination. With its ease of wear and styling, the work of designers like Emilio Pucci and the Fontana sisters set Italy apart from the haute couture that still characterized French design in those early years. In the 1970s, with the beginning of the Made in Italy phenomenon, Italian fashion became both an economic success and a source of reflection. In Italy and the United States, exhibitions of Italian fashion highlighted the ingenuity of the designer, especially those like Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace, who had cultivated an international presence. This presentation will look at the phenomenon of Italian fashion in the US, from its successful retail showing to its inclusion in American art museums. It will also consider the impact of the success of Italian fashion on Italian Americans in the 1980s, and the mutual benefit that the celebration of Italian designers afforded.

Marcella Martin is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Italian Studies at New York University. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual Culture: Costume Studies also from New York University. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies she was a Lecturer in the history of fashion and Curator of the Textile and Costume Collection at Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently working on her dissertation project  titled: “Fondazione Fashion: Contemporary Art, Brand Museums, and the Pursuit of Modern Italy” in which she uses four exhibitions of Italian art and fashion to trace the prehistory of brand museums and their unique relationship to contemporary art in Italy. This spring she curated the exhibition “Made in Italy, Sold in America: Fashion in Attenzione Magazine, 1979-1987”, which is currently on view at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimo at New York University and she is also a Fellow at the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York.

Please e-mail to info@dantecharleston.org for detail.