Italian Style

The insight at the heart of Paulicelli's earnest and unflashy book is that dress cultivates mood and can variously intimate the languor or lasciviousness of a specific moment or the state of an entire country ... [Paulicelli is] knowledgeable and unafraid to wade deep into obscure Italian films and textile history. * Times Literary Supplement *
This critically elegant and highly readable book tackles anew how fashion and cinema combine social history with aesthetics. Impressively well researched, Italian Style is a compelling exploration of how the fashion industry and its costume designers shaped the cultural context of national identity. With vigor and clarity, Paulicelli illuminates such films as Fellini’s Roma, Antonioni’s Le amiche, and Sorrentino’s La grande bellezza. A must-read for anyone with an interest in cinema and passion for this glorious art. * Gaetana Marrone, Professor of Italian, Princeton University, USA *
“Paulicelli’s book is a tour de force of film and fashion scholarship, a beautifully written and authoritative exploration of Italian national identity that will appeal to a wide readership. In mapping out Italy’s rich cultural heritage from early twentieth century modernism, through the economic miracle years to the present day, this book sets out to do nothing less than define Italian style as embodied by the dialogue between fashion and film. That Italian Style achieves this is testament to its brilliance.” * Stella Bruzzi, Professor of Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick, UK *
An important initial assessment of the intertwined destinies of fashion and film in Italy from the start of the twentieth century to the present … Well researched, theoretically grounded, and densely argued, this book is an important read for scholars and students of fashion and/or film. * Journal of Modern Italian Studies *