Rome, Italy, May 28th, 1939: La grande adunata delle forze femminili (Great parade of the female forces) is taking place in Rome. The event, filmed by the Istituto Luce, is a national female parade organized by the Duce Benito Mussolini to put women on display as part of the fascist regime. Women with different roles march in front of the Duce, the fascist gerarchi and a group of guests and aristocrats sitting on the grandstands: among them there are athletes wearing sports uniforms, women in military attire and nurses.
The massaie rurali (women from rural areas, or rural housewives) clad in regional costumes are the most colourful group: the bombastic voice of the proud fascist commentator in the video highlights how there seems to be a contrast between the severity of the uniforms alternated with the multi-coloured regional costumes.
Yet the massaie's costumes weren't actually examples of personal style as the fascist regime wasn't keen on individuality: all the women in the parade were supposed to serve the same ideal, creating a grand spectacle for fascism.
The massaie rurali weren't therefore wearing their local and regional costumes integrating embroideries made by them or unique jewellery and headgear to show their skills and artisanal traditions. Their attire was just another way to showcase the nation’s traditions and hint at the grandeur of the regime.
Fascism exalted regional differences using them to celebrate nationalism: quite often it promoted the inclusion of elements or styles borrowed from regional dress into modern dresses and gowns to convince well-off women to buy their dresses in Italy rather than in Paris.
Dress historian Patrizia Ribuoli states in the essay "Civil uniforms under the fascist regime” (included in the catalogue for the exhibition "1922-1943: Vent'anni di moda italiana", Milan, December 1980 – March 1981): "One aspect deserving special mention is the opportunity given to the massaie rurali (rural housewives) to wear their regional costumes instead of the official uniform. This concession fully aligned with the fascist ideology: it preserved traditions, and the entire Nation was expected to take pride in it."
The women in fascist uniforms and the massaie rurali were therefore opposite entities, but essentially products of the same regime that was using them as tools to control the country and, notably, women.
Alberobello, Italy, July 2023: Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Moda (Haute Couture) show took place last week in scenic Alberobello, in the Puglia region.
A cinematic editing of the video for the event posted on YouTube chronicles it: the video starts in black and white with shots of the trulli (cone-roofed buildings) while church bells can be heard ringing in the distance and women in regional costumes carrying baskets with bread loaves on their heads, ears of wheat under their arms or ceramic jugs arrive and take place near the runway.
Some of them sit on simple kitchen chairs and small stools, others remain standing, a few of them sit on the ground. In the meantime, celebrities (Kim Kardashian included), clients and influencers have taken their designated seats on the terraces of a small arena built on purpose, further away from them.
More supposedly neo-realistic black and white shots of the streets follow: there are a few young school kids in school smocks and satchels sitting on the doorstep of a house, vaguely reminiscent of the kids in Fellini's Amarcord.
A few young men stand along the streets, most of them are young muscular models in short or long trousers, matched with vests or simple shirts, and peaked caps, sensually ogling women, disturbingly calling to mind a time in Italy when, if you were a woman and were seduced or raped, you had to marry your seducer or rapist.
Fake young widows sit along the streets pretending of praying on the rosary beads they hold in their hands and the camera also lingers on women clad in in black sewing on their doorsteps or embroidering inside their houses.
The configuration of these little scenes calls to mind the nativity or passion scenes staged in Italy around Christmas or on Good Friday, when entire villages devote themselves to recreating scenes from the birth of Jesus or the passion of Christ.
As the runway starts with André Rieu's music in the background the film turns from black and white to colour and models walk along the streets of scenic Alberobello.
The first one is wearing an oversized conical hat inspired by the roofs of the trulli; one cape, a mini-skirt and a longer skirt integrate rural scenes of the trulli, their roofs made with finely pleated satin in fifty shades of grey.
There are crocheted and lace designs, mini-dresses made with basket weaving techniques, bobbin lace embroideries and openwork on crisp white linen dresses that look like bedsheets, but were probably inspired by altar linens. One model carries a basket, another a lamb. It's the perfect mix of religion, neo-realism, regional crafts, Federico Fellini (think also about Fellini's 8 ½ with all the characters holding hands in the circus parade finale and compare it with the end of this show with the marching band playing following a procession led by the two designers).
You can love or hate what you see in a show, you can appreciate the fine details or the extravagant looks, but in this show the presence of the "massaie rurali" (well, ok, there were also a few men among them) sitting at the sidelines made you ponder a bit about the role of women, traditions and fashion perceptions. It is beautiful to preserve traditions and rediscover folkloric attires, but there was no need to separate the locals in traditional costume from the rest of the guests. In fact, they could have sat in the front row (especially if among them there were maybe some local artisans who contributed to creating the designs), possibly in designer clothes.
In the end there was a strange parallelism between the fascist parade and this show: in the former you got uniformed women, athletes and rural housewives admired by fascists and aristocrats sitting on the grandstands; here you had models, beautiful and ethereal in impossibly expensive gowns and groups of locals in their own folk costumes used as colourful elements while revered guests admired the looks and made a mind note about a gown they may want to wear at the next red carpet event.
Both the events had a different purpose: in the former case political propaganda; in the latter selling the grand styles on display. Yet they also had something in common as both used regional values to hint at the grandeur of the nation (well, Italy has currently got a right-wing government, so this parallelism works pretty well…).
Resort or high fashion shows organised in scenic places in Italy often incorporate such folkloristic notes, mainly employed to make invited guests believe they have reached a mythical bucolic land kissed by the sun and lulled by the sound of cicadas where everything is untouched and perfect (well, it's not if you consider how Xylella fastidiosa, the devasting bacterium that from a coffee plant spread to olive trees, spread in Puglia in 2013, killing local trees and eventually spreading to France, Spain and Portugal).
Other fashion houses, including Dior (in July 2020 for its 2021 Resort collection) and Gucci (in 2022 for its Resort 2023 collection), were attracted to do their shows in Puglia and the region is usually very open to such events as they know that they are obviously a magnet for tourists.
That's perfectly understandable, but you wish the south of Italy (and its crafts) would receive a year-round appreciation for the cultural heritage and local skills, and not just when there are temporary fashion extravaganzas like D&G's (that actually lasted three days). It would also be more appropriate to avoid using locals as actors, to contribute creating the vision of a pastoral forgotten land to entertain your guests.
If we truly want to honor and respect artisans and local traditions, we should provide opportunities for them to share their vanishing techniques with design (and not just fashion) students as part of their university courses, rather than using them merely for decorative purposes.
Unfortunately, the same industry that claims to cherish traditions and artisans often contributes to their demise. In our modern times, it has indeed become increasingly costly even for influential brands to invest in and support artisanal skills and, while it may be acceptable to incorporate the work of local craftspeople into a few designs for a Haute Couture collection, financial constraints make it unfeasible to incorporate the work of craftspeople into ready-to-wear collections.
So, watch the video and appreciate the crafts of Italian fashion, but let's hope that next time there is a show in a scenic place such as Puglia, the locals are not used as mere extras with the allure of the massaie rurali of fascist times, but are invited to take their rightful place alongside celebrities as esteemed and honored guests.
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