Question

How fascinating is Italian fashion style

Answer 1

• In the fashion world, if you see or hear the words ‘made in Italy’, you know you’re getting a good deal. Italian fashion prides itself with being high quality and luxuriously stylish. From dressed-down suits to large, classic watches, everything is carefully considered even though it can often look as if an outfit was just thrown together.
• It’s difficult to point out exactly what makes them so timelessly stylish, but it tends to be a mix of the big and small elements. A fusion of the bigger details such as fabric and colour choices of the suit, and the smaller details such as the trouser and sleeve length.
• Of course, you can also argue that the Italian climate has an influence on their fashion. For example, dressed-down linen suits would be ideal for a warmer climate as they’re not as tight or stuffy as say, the formal British wool or tweed counterpart.
• Certainly, the roots of Italian fashion go way back – to 14th-Century Florence. And as the cradle of the Renaissance, Italy can lay claim to some serious heritage. In Florence, for elite families of the period – the Medici among them – appearance and display were intimately bound up with identity. Affluent Florentines were obsessed with fashion, investing huge proportions of their fortunes on clothing.
• But it was not until the postwar years of the 20th Century that Italy’s international fashion industry came into its own. Largely responsible was aristocratic entrepreneur Giovanni Battista Giorgini, who gathered designs from the best tailors and dressmakers in the country, including Pucci, the Fontana sisters and Capucci.It was the heady combination of celebrity and style that proved the truly irresistible combination.
• The nation’s trademark swagger goes hand in hand with its long tradition of craftsmanship.And in Italian tailoring there are many regional variations of detail. Italian tailoring has reached worldwide status over the past half century.