ITA 323SEM—Italian Fashion: Culture, Tradition, and Global Challenges

This course surveys the history of Italian fashion from the Renaissance to the 21st century, focusing on issues of gender, identity, and culture at large. It explores key moment in the history of Italian fashion, especially during the 20th century, with special attention to the women who shaped Italian fashion industry, from Elsa Schiaparelli to the Fontana sisters to Miuccia Prada. The course will put fashion in dialogue with other forms of art such as painting and cinema, discussing how fashion intertwines with social aspects, from Fascism to the economic boom of the 1980s. Finally, this course will address some of the challenges that the fashion industry is facing in the 21st century, from globalization, to fast-fashion and sustainability.