The Fashion Palace

The objective of this essay is to analyse some aspects of modernistnationalism, starting with the Universal Exhibition of Turin 1911, organisedto celebrate the 50th anniversary of Italian unity, the FashionPalace being a fundamental cornerstone for the construction of a NationalFashion. This in a historical moment when in a context of nationalismand imperialism fashion was perceived in Western socialconsciousness as one of the major indices of expansion and dominationover peoples, a fundamental element in the struggle for worldsupremacy.In particular, the paper will show how, precisely with the FashionPalace, the battles for an Italian fashion in that historical phase werenot just an internal question of independence from French fashion,but rather of the construction of a national identity in the internationalnetworks of politics, commerce, culture, as exemplified by EnricoCorradini in 1909, identifying the designer Rosa Genoni as the womanmost deserving of Italian character:I learned the name of Ms. Genoni at a women’s conference where shefirst presented her proposals. She seemed to me the woman most deservingof Italian character. The lady’s grooming is an expression of beauty and art, it can be a way of resuscitating beautiful Italian characterof other times, it is a way of achieving supremacy in the worldand it is a big industry and a big business, just as it is today for theFrench. One of the greatest bonds that Brazil and Argentina have todaywith France is that of women’s fashion. Those distant regions aretributaries of French fashion and culture. The day that we could establishan Italian fashion (I also know that this cannot happen for 100reasons, 99 of which do not start or end in actual dressmaking) wewould have one more product that we could try to export across theocean.