HIST 420 – History of Fashion

Creativity, a taste for beauty, tradition and imagination have always been part of Italian culture, being key factors in the shaping of its extraordinary artistic heritage, and in the emergence of a specifically Italian style. Those same qualities that fed the blossoming of Renaissance painting, sculpture and architecture, and of an early market for extraordinary luxury goods, can be recognized behind the growth of a special Italian phenomenon of our own times, which was revealed to the world at the famous first catwalk in the Sala Bianca, at Pitti Palace, Florence, in 19522: that is, Italian high Fashion.

The aim of this course is to explore the evolution of Italian fashion over the last eight centuries, engaging students in a visual and cultural journey that, from the fourteenth century to our own days, will help them to appreciate the evolution of the Italian market for fashion items such as luxury clothes, designer fabrics and precious accessories. A multi-faceted and cross-thematic approach to the understanding of the style, spirit, creativity, artistic content and artisanal know-how that are embedded in Italian fashion will be an essential feature to this course. Society as a whole will be explored in order to highlight those developments that have led to the emergence of Italian high fashion on the world stage. Students will be presented with a wide range of issues including: the impact of gender and political structures on the shaping of an individual and group identity through clothing; the contribution given by famous Renaissance artists to the production of luxury fabrics; the establishment of a Florentine silk economy in the fifteenth century; the emergence of writings on fashion and style; the design experiments connected to the birth of Opera; and the impact of hollywood and Cinecitta industries on fashion production in our time.

Thanks to the material explored during each class students will be encouraged to establish dynamic relationships between cases pertaining to the past and contemporary fashion, costume and cultural issues; and, at the same time, to recognize the critical part played by Florence in all of this.
A variety of site visits ranging from specialist collections to contemporary workshops and ateliers will add freshness and excitement to this learning experience.

By the end of the course students should have achieved:

• The ability to recognize and analyze in a critical way the fundamental aspects of fashion evolution explored during the semester;
• The understanding of how artistic developments affected the market for clothes, fabrics and luxury goods; – The ability to establish a connection between fashion and wider cultural/economic phenomena;
• The ability to interpret primary and secondary sources and to use these sources to develop an independent vision of the subject;
• The ability to articulate in a fluent way, both in a written and oral form, the knowledge acquired.