Couture & Commerce

• Before 1945, Italy was mainly an agricultural country with a rich cultural history but limited industrial fashion production.
• Even before WWII, Ferragamo and Gucci accessories, along with Italian textiles, had already gained international recognition.
• Commercial and cultural ties between America and Italy greatly shaped the development of Italian fashion.
• The traditional definition of "haute couture" exclusively includes designs from Paris haute couture houses meeting Chambre Syndicale standards.

Couture & Commerce

• Couture is high-end fashion.
• Couture models were bought by retailers for fashion shows and private clients.
• North American couture consumption was shaped by buyers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers.
• Private clients saw collections after North American and European commercial buyers.
• Brands would purchase tickets to fashion shows and then produce their own legal copies, extending fashion's reach.
• During the Nazi regime, control of the fashion industry was equated to being allied with the Nazis.
• Sweden and Italy had connections with Germany.
• Italian dressmakers, tailors, and accessory firms gained visibility through famous figures like aristocrats, artists, and movie stars.
• Unlike France, Italy has never had a single fashion capital.
• The Italian fashion system's expertise is distributed across various regions.
• Milan was the last city liberated from occupation and suffered the most war damage.
• The House of Italian Handicraft in New York was a highly curated venue.
• The "Italy at Work" exhibition, including Ferragamo's work, showcased Italian fashion in museums, adapting to each city's seasonal context.
• Giovanni Battista Giorgini (1898-1971) was a commissioner and buyer for American department stores in Florence starting in 1923.
• Giorgini founded the Italian High Fashion Shows (1951-1965), which later became part of Pitti Immagine.
• There was a clear shift in promoting Italian fashion as an institution.
• Italians never created one organization to control all fashion, because each city wanted to maintain its visibility.
• Alexandra Palmer defines couture broadly to include high-end European dressmaking patterned after Paris couture salons.

You Don’t Buy Clothes – You Buy an Identity (Mark Tungate)​

• Fashion is deeply linked to identity and is marketed as a lifestyle.
• Marketing transforms garments into symbols of identity.
• The fashion industry is now a trillion-dollar economy inclusive of clothing, luxury goods, cosmetics, and accessories.
• Fashion reflects societal values, status, and political statements.
• Fashion integrates into daily life and extends to items such as cars and gadgets.
• Branding aligns with personal identity categories such as elegance, intellect, and sexiness.
• Fashion has a profound impact on culture and consumer behavior.

The King of Couture: How Louis XIV Invented Modern Fashion (Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell)

• Louis XIV made fashion a French-led, seasonal, media-driven industry.
• He shifted the fashion capital from Spain to France during his reign.
• Louis XIV promoted French luxury industries to strengthen the economy and monarchy.
• He created fashion seasons, setting production cycles and consumer habits.
• Fashion was used as propaganda through fashion plates and media.
• France became synonymous with luxury, influencing global fashion trends and establishing haute couture as an economic and cultural force.

G.B. Giorgini: Fashion, Florence, and Diplomacy, 1950–55​

• Giovanni Battista Giorgini turned Florence into a global fashion capital in the mid-20th century through strategy and diplomacy.
• He organized bi-annual Florence fashion shows, showing Italian design to international buyers and press.
• Giorgini worked with the U.S. government to use fashion as part of anti-Communist diplomacy during the Cold War.
• Florence’s Renaissance heritage was used to create a story for Italian fashion.
• He made access easier for international buyers, boosting Italy’s reputation as a hub for craftsmanship.
• Giorgini’s work laid the groundwork for the "Made in Italy" brand, securing Italy’s place in the fashion industry.

Lecture 4: walking tour

• Two main high-end streets in Florence: Tornabuoni and Vigna Nuova.
• Palazzo Antonio was the residence of the Antinori family, the oldest wine producers in Italy.
• Ferragamo also sells wine.
• Brunello Cucinelli is known as the "king of cashmere" and popularized colored cashmere.
• Fashion is about selling a lifestyle.
• Procacci is known for some of the best wine and signature drinks.
• The largest concentration of artisans is on the other side of the river.

Lecture 5: Fashion Promotion: Brand Communication Mix

• A trademark is connected to legal aspects and copyright, whereas brands are NOT protected by copyrights.
• Both a trademark and a brand are needed for a company.
• A brand begins with a trademark.

Trademark

• What consumers see.
• What the company/brand does and is known for.

Brand

• What consumers feel.
• What the company/brand represents and stands for.
• Brand meaning is why people like or dislike brands.
• Brand encounters result in perceptions that build or change brand associations and determine brand meaning.
• Touchpoints are moments where brands interact with consumers (e.g., store, person, magazine).
• Communication is a 360-degree strategic activity for brands.
• Everything a brand does has meaning or a message.
• The online environment is constantly growing along with the traditional offline environment.
• Phygital experiences that combine the digital and physical are increasingly important.
• Today's consumer is often unfaithful, sharp, crafty, expert, informed, and interacts with media content.
• There are new advertising languages and platforms that reconfigure the media system.
• Branded content is increasingly important.
• A brand communicates through what it says, shows, and does.
• There are different degrees of awareness and control in managing communication.

WHAT THE BRAND SAYS

• Mostly advertising, communication campaigns, and branded content on websites or social media.

WHAT THE BRAND SHOWS

• It shows infrastructures, transportation, shops/stores, and packaging.

WHAT THE BRAND DOES

• Mainly products and services as well as events, sponsorships, and collaborations.

PACKAGING

• Packaging provides protection and transportation.
• It communicates the values and aesthetics of the brand.
• Packaging can be entertaining and fun.

Lecture 6: Fashion Promotion: Brand Communication Mix

Types of store:

• Flagship stores extend the brand experience with good locations, special items, and additional functions.
• Department stores carry multiple brands.
• Concept stores carry multiple brands, have exhibition space, and include a place to eat or drink.
• Temporary or pop-up shops open for a limited time in high-traffic areas to promote the brand.
• Factory outlet stores have past collections and major discounts.
• Online stores exist such as YooX.
• Stores need to include experience, education, and entertainment.

Lecture 7: A Brief History of (Fashion) Journalism

• Journalism includes reporting, news, digital media, and media content across platforms.
• Journalism involves journalists, practices, and a code of conduct related to the readership.
• Journalists select news based on relevance and significance called newsworthiness.
• Gatekeeping is choosing what readers will see in the news.
• Journalism is intended to represent reality through a three-step process:
  • Selecting meaningful information.
  • Planning a news hierarchy by weighting the importance of news.
  • Structuring and editing news based on narrative, aesthetic, and ethical criteria.
• Journalism became established in the 18th century as a tool to educate the elite and bourgeoisie.
• Contributed to public opinion free from government influence.
• Freedom of the press is stated in the First Amendment.
• Journalism has a role in democratizing societies and is progressively oriented towards larger parts of the population.

Diversification of newspaper offer:

• Broadsheet newspapers provide authoritative and complete information.
• Tabloid newspapers are humorous, colorful, and contain different kinds of news.

Tabloid

• Informational style.
• Mainly images.
• Bold headlines.
• Focus on celebrity culture.

Broadsheet

• Formal style.
• Lots of text.
• Statistics and expert opinions.
• Focus on politics and culture.
• Expansion of literacy among women during that time was also connected to the progressive expansion of the right to vote.
• Journalism became oriented to women at the end of the 19th century by focusing on topics of interest to them.
• There are special editions of newspapers on certain days with special issues on houses and fashion.
• The modern publishing industry emerged along with new formats of magazines.
• Mass literacy came about during this time.
• Mass distribution possible through the improvement of publishing, quality paper and using colors.

MAGAZINES & BEYOND

• Diffusion of fashion/lifestyle periodicals in the 1800s was due to:
  • The emergence of a new social class.
  • A new idea of women with a desire for independence, art, literature, and culture in general.
  • People willing to spend money for being elegant and for living an elegant life.
• Harper's Bazaar was established in 1867.
• Cosmopolitan was established in 1886.
• Vogue was established in 1892.
• GQ was established in 1931, then 1979.
• Magazines covered fashion, arts, literature, and history but still emphasized traditional roles for women.
• Fashion magazines focused on the "Three Hs model" (Home, Heart, Husband).
• Popularity of fashion magazines boomed in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Magazines became lifestyle magazines.

The Present: Digitalization & New Media

• Digital editions have grown, while paper copies have greatly reduced.
• Newsrooms are transforming with fewer people and more diverse skills.
• Narrative styles are more visual, shorter, and have more graphic elements.
• There is faster change and constant updates, especially online.
• Multimedia projects are increasingly important.
• There is a growing number of fake news with less control.

Lecture 8: Vogue Italiana case study in fashion journalism

• Trade magazines such as those designed for specific markets within the fashion industry are usually annual or bi-annual, expensive, and less entertaining for consumers.
• Commercial magazines such as Vogue or W are released on a regular schedule and are relatively inexpensive.
• Brand magazines are an additional tool for brand communication and promotion that can be free or expensive to consumers.
• Condé Nast acquired the Italian magazine Novità in 1962.
• The name was changed to Vogue Italia in 1966.
• Each branch of Vogue is an independent publication.
• The Editor-in-Chief became the Head of Editorial Content.
• Franco Sartori led Vogue Italia from 1966-1988.
• Used Vogue Italia as a tool to promote ‘Made in Italy.’
• Golden Age of Italian Fashion ensued.
• Vogue Italia was led by Franca Sozzani from 1988-2016.
• She legitimized fashion journalism as a new way of talking about society and culture.
• Importance of visual language and photography as a form of artistic expression and social protest.
• The magazine survived the digital wave in fashion.
• Emanuele Farneti led Vogue Italia from 2017-2021.
• Francesca Ragazzi leads Vogue Italia from 2021-Now.
• Certain people can leave their ‘fingerprints’ in magazines.
• Engagement is a key for Vogue Italy.
• Social, Political, and Cultural Engagement has always been a distinctive and characteristic feature of Vogue Italia from Franca Sozzani’s times…but not only.
• In July 2008, the first ever only black issue of as fashion magazine was released.
• Vogue Values 2020, nr. 833, January 2020 focused on adopting sustainable practices.

Newsworthiness, News Values & Ethics

• Timing is that news should be new.
• Proximity to the reader is significant, geographically, culturally, or thematically.
• Spectacularity: the more dramatic a story is, the more significant it is.
• People involved: A quantitative perspective (how many people?) and a qualitative perspective (who?).
• Human interest: engage the audience emotionally.
• News values: the set of ‘values’ a professional should follow while working is called ethical code.

Lecture 9: The September Issue

• No additional notes.

Lecture 10: The Language of Advertising

• Advertising informs, gives intelligence, and makes public.
• Advertising connects products and the market.
• Advertising has become a 2 way street with consumers and influencers now a part of the brand message.
• Brands Advertising/Branded Content/U.G.C. Consumers & Influencers
• MEDIA HABITS: Reference to the mediascape (the different media of communication in a specific context and for a specific field) and media prosumption (:conflation of the words and production and consumption)
• Integrated communication/promotion campaign.

The Language of Advertising: styles in Fashion Advertising

• Informational advertising informs people about a brand or product.
• Persuasive advertising convinces people using emotional or rational reasons.
• Projective advertising uses ambiguous messages that allows observers to project their desires, passions, and needs.

The Evolution of Advertising

• 1920s: The Roaring Art Deco Era focused on posters and graphic design.
• 1950s: The Rise of Consumerism focused on fashion magazines.
• 1960s: Creativity and Counterculture, rebellion, and the advent of television.
• 1980s: Materialism and Technological Leap with video games.
• 1990s: Globalization & Logo Culture using personal computers.
• 2000s: Digital Revolution and Personalization using social media.
• 2010s: Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability using transmedia storytelling, social and environmental causes, and influencer marketing.
• 2020s: Digital Domination and Data Driven Insights use AR, VR, and AI.
• Branded content focuses on brand values, history, and vision.
• It fuses advertisement and entertainment.
• It is not considered a distraction, but is researched.

Types of Branded Content:

• Advertorials
• Brand magazines (Colors)
• Branded web series (Walking Stories)
• Brand film, fashion film, short movies (The Good Italian; A Therapy; Castello Cavalcanti)
• Podcasts: ‘Dior Talks’
• N.B. branded entertainment (commercial brands)
• Controversial Advertising

Lecture 11: Controversial Advertising & Brand Activism

• Shock/Controversial Advertising aims to shock or cause controversy by addressing sensitive issues or offending principles.
• The objective is to raise awareness and generate publicity.

Forms of Shock Advertising involve:

• Disgusting images that may include images containing blood, gore, body parts, orifices, disease, parasites, death or bodily harm
• Sexual references to masturbation, nudity or sexual acts EX: Balenciaga ad featuring children and sexual innuendos/BDSM
• Hyper-sexualization up to the limits of pornography: CK, Sisley, Tom Ford, American Apparel, Calvin Klein
• Profanity/obscenity that makes use of swear words, rude gestures or racial epithets
• Impropriety or indecency, in other words a violation of social decency and etiquette, including vulgarity
• Moral offensiveness involving harm to innocent people or animals, violence or sex, using people that provoke violence (for example, Hitler), unfair behavior using children in uncomfortable situations
• Religious taboos where marketers make use of religious or spiritual symbols or people inappropriately: United Colors of Benetton, Pony, Marithè et Francois Girbaud, Diesel
• Brands are now acting as agents of change and able to influence people beyond consumer choices.
• Brands now abandon idea of neutrality and become engaged politically and culturally.
• Diversity is recognized to have promotional value
• There is now a transformation of brands into “institutions” from an economic, social and cultural perspective.
• Brands express preferences, values, and lifestyle, to influence consumers.

Lecture 12: Fashion Photography

• Fashion magazines are predominantly visual.
• Fashion is is meant to be experienced mostly through sight.
• First Vogue cover using photography was in 1936.
• Clothing is elevated from its material properties to an aesthetic idea through its representation as an image in the media.
• Fashion photography: from commercial photography to artistic activity.

Different photographic genres:

• Commercial photography
• Documentary photography
• Photojournalism
• Architectural photography
• Fashion photography
• Food photography
• Portraits
• Street photography
• Conceptual Fine Art Photography
• Fashion photography has responded to contemporary life such as changes in social structures, economic circumstances or gender expectations.

Technological transformations:

• Chemical processing
• Faster films
• Smaller & Lighter cameras
• Artificial lights
• Color film
• Digital image capture
• Post-production
• Artificial Intelligence
• Fashion Photography is employed in magazines mainly in two ways.
• Advertising (direct reference to the product or brand – more commercial than artistic). The photographer is hired by the brand.
• Fashion Editorials (longer spreads, that make reference to themes and ideas – more artistic than commercial). The photographer is hired by the magazine.
• Still life photography (packshots and lookbooks) mostly but not exclusively for commercial purposes and is very important for e-commerce.
• Fashion photography involves models on location, and following specific themes.
• Photography in Fashion Magazines captures the transformation of society with a privileged perspective on the process of female empowerment.

Photography in Fashion Magazines answer Who, What and How?

• Who: aristocracy, models, top models, celebrities but also real/normal people
• What: the transformation of society (mostly western societies, even if today there are fashion magazines all over the world) with a privileged perspective on the process of female empowerment, but also the transformation of male gender identities with the proposition of new conceptions of masculinities (birth of male fashion magazines)
• Now always more attention to the exploitation of contemporary socially and culturally debated topics.
• How: Keeping together the artistic vocation and the commercial imprinting.
• Baron Adolf De Meyer (Germany, 1868-1946) was the first official staff Vogue Photographer.
• Thanks to his wife, a noblewoman, he was an insider of the European aristocratic and noble society
• Louise Dahl-Wolfe (American, 1895-1989) was the first female fashion photographer.
• Innovative fashion photography style: women are not mannequins and are represented mostly in outdoor locations
• Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009) was a designer and photographer.
• 165 Vogue covers (he is the author of the first and only still life Vogue’s cover)
• Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) had a long collaboration with Diana Wreeland.
• Psychological and Physical investigation of the portraited people.
• A new definition of beauty that goes beyond the idea of perfection
• Oliviero Toscani (1942-2024) had a collaboration with Benetton.

Fashion Blogging and Influencing

• There are approximately 600 million Blogs as of 2021 and 2024 estimates.
• Blogs are rated among the most trusted sources for accurate online information
• Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their websites
• Mega influencers have 1000K followers.
• Macro influencers have 500K followers.
• Micro influencers have 100K followers.
• Nano influencers have 10K followers.
• Blogging is creating a new form of fashion journalism that mixes entertainment, information, and promotion, based on multimedia productions (photo, video, words etc.)
• For the fashion system is is an easy and inexpensive way to establish a contact (and consequently developing a relationship) with a sensible number of consumers on a daily basis (instant connection)
• Bloggers reach out to wider plethora of differentiated audiences – niches – for the fashion system.
• Blogging conveys a fashion, that is not centered on established designers and key cities only or on the voice of the traditional expert but that echoes the openness.
• Democratization of the fashion world.
• New, emerging designers and new (instant) brands
• New fashion cities and fashion trends
• New (and old) professionals entering the Fashion System.

WHO ARE THE BLOGGERS? BLOGGERS IDENTIKIT

• Women make up the majority of bloggers.
• Generally they are young and aged between 18-34.
• Well educated: 7 out of 10 have gone to college and the majority of them graduated.
• Active across the different social media: they are twice as likely to post/comment and create consumer-generated contents.
• They feel at ease with the idea of sharing with other (even details of their private lives).
• "Fashion blogs are the result of the individual need and desire to express oneself, to communicate and share opinions, viewpoints and ideas about fashion within a community in a virtually free platform."
• Credibility is connected to the cultivation of ‘trust’.
• According to Aristotle: credibility is a moral quality possessed by the rhetor, such as the one of honestly; a specific characteristic feature of an individual
• Contemporary social sciences focus on the idea that credibility is a relational concept: we are trusted and believed if we are perceived as credible
• According to Aristotle: credibility is a moral quality possessed by the rhetor, such as the one of honestly; a specific characteristic feature of an individual
• Contemporary social sciences focus on the idea that credibility is a relational concept: we are trusted and believed if we are perceived as credible

Sources of credibility: 3 main roots of credibility

• Cognitive Root: Expertise in a subject.
• Ethical Root: Common values that the audience connects with.
• Affective–Emotional Root: An immediate attraction and sympathy that goes beyond explanation.
• Able: Competence.
• Believable: Credibility and integrity.
• Connected: Relationship, empathy, and care.
• Dependable: Responsible and accountable.

Types of Fashion Blogs

• Outfit/Style Blogs
  • Individual blogger.
  • Closer to self-marketing than to journalism.
    • (1) amateur or (2) professionals.
  • First wave bloggers (before Sept. 2009).
    • Dolce & Gabbana Fashion show which bloggers were invited to sit next to editors.
  • Second wave bloggers (after Sept. 2009).
    • Bloggers became more aware of their roles.
  • Sharing passion to profession.
• News Blogs
  • Collective/group blogs.
  • Professionals more generally.
  • It is more for insiders of the business than for the general audience.
• Corporate Blogs
  • Professionals employed by the company.
  • Blogs directly used as channels of promotion for new products or brand communication.
  • Used to promote client engagement and customer loyalty, but also for awareness campaigns.