Fashion during the Nationalism and Imperialism of the Years of Fascism

The analysis of visual and audiovisual documents on “Moda” (Fashion) (1928-1945) in the Archivio Storico Istituto Luce (http://www.archivioluce.com/archivio/) offers unprecedented research opportunities related to the subject of Fashion during the nationalism and imperialism of the 1930s. In particular, from a contemporary historiographic point of view, these documents – specifically the Luce newsreels – make it possible to identify and see how a system of political, economic and cultural relations contributed to the creation and affirmation of an Italian modernity in the world. And, vice versa, they let us see how international modernity was reflected in the Italian context. In this sense, the Luce newsreels, now visible in the online database, in a broader comparison with other topics and together with other documentary sources allow consideration of the phenomena, events and processes of fashion and costume captured in global contexts, whose gaze goes beyond the national boundaries that historiography has often not crossed. Peculiarly, the visual imagery of fashion represented in the Luce newsreels, beyond the pairing “cinema and fashion”, appears organised around a platform that makes it possible to identify a synthetic unity between political, economic and cultural relations and, on the other hand, recognise how the modernity of international fashion, in its operative function, determines the condition of feasibility of Italian fashion itself. Keywords Fashion, Fascism, Istituto Luce, Nationalism, Imperialism LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACS Central State Archive ASIL Istituto Luce Historical Archive (www.archivioluce.it) ASFI Florence State Archive AGBG Giovanni Battista Giorgini Archive AS-FC Forlì-Cesena State Archive AGPD Giacomo Paulucci di Calboli Archive