Italy and Italian: Art, Design, Business, and more

"The story told in this book, which analyzes the presence of Italians in California in the early decades of the twentieth century and the influence they exerted in various sectors (from architecture to art, from crafts to the burgeoning film industry), began in 1915, the year Salvatore Ferragamo arrived in the United States and soon after moved to the sunny West Coast. That same year the Panama-Pacific International Exposition opened in San Francisco, where Marcello Piacentini’s Italian Citadel made waves and marked the beginning of the powerful and lasting influence of the Renaissance style on the local architectural language. Against the backdrop of Italian emigration to the States-the fil rouge running through the entire book-and of a Hollywood on its way to becoming the world capital of the young film industry, the volume tells of personalities who were already myths in their day, such as Enrico Caruso, Rudolph Valentino, Lina Cavalieri, and Tina Modotti; cinematic milestones like Cabiria, Ben-Hur, and Romola; the star system and iconic directors; the important part played by Italian musicians in the birth of jazz; and the thousands of Italians who worked "behind the scenes," making a vital contribution to the creation of the Hollywood myth. This complex story, told both in words and in images, paints a varied and multifaceted picture of the "set" on which the Shoemaker of Dreams began his thrilling creative adventure in America. Exhibition: Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, Palazzo Spini Feroni, Florence, Italy "

Catalog of an exhibition held within 21st Triennale di Milano at the Palazzo della Triennale, Milan, Italy, April 2-September 12, 2016.

"The essence of Italian style through fashion and costume in the 20th century in a handsome volume that captures the evolution of Italian fashion's biggest brands. The fashion archive of Enrico Quinto and Paolo Tinarelli has been painstakingly assembled over the last twenty years and traces the international evolution of costume from the mid-19th century to the present day. This quintessential volume on Italian style narrates the development of fashion through around three hundred dresses, chronologically ordered and selected from an international collection of over six thousand pieces, enriched by commentary by historians, journalists, and fashion designers, but also by photography, film, and personal testimony: a concrete resource for historians of costume, students, and those passionate about style. The idea of departing from a purely chronological sequence springs from a desire to demonstrate the vitality and ongoing relevance of historical pieces through their juxtaposition with contemporary examples. Most of the displayed dresses were documented by photographers when they first appeared on famous actresses, models, and jet-set personalities of the time: from the Duchess of Windsor to Queen Paola of Belgium, from Princess Grace of Monaco to Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Veruschka, Marisa Berenson, and Grace Jones, among many others."

"Will eco-friendly fashion dress the future? Can fashion be sustainable? Sustainability is a challenge that cannot be ignored today. Sustainable fashion reassesses the material and manufacturing components without renouncing the aesthetic and symbolic. The Beautiful and the Good highlights—with the aid of case histories—how we are going through a profound and necessary change of paradigm in the culture of consumption"

"What’s hot in Italian fashion now, and what soon will be hot. New stars are rising in the Italian fashion world—a varied group comprised of a young generation of designers who studied at fashion schools in Italy and abroad, who love contemporary art and architecture and are not afraid of facing new challenges. They all understand that it is necessary to go beyond the label of "Made in Italy" in order to find a new global identity for Italian fashion. The designers have been chosen by Maria Luisa Frisa for their critical philosophy of breaking with tradition and their ability to define new scenarios that emphasize "dressing" as part of a composite process."