Fashion in Autarchy: politics of fashion in 1930s fascist Italy

Abstract

The fascist regime enforced autarchy in the second half of the 1930s to promote domestic production and reduce raw materials imports. Autarchy was introduced as a strategic response to the economic sanctions that the League of Nations applied to Italy after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The article analyses the role that fashion played in the autarchic programme of the fascist regime. It investigates the relationships that both fascism and fashion have in common with modernism. Particularly, it examines the role that fashion’s cultural identity and international character have played in the construction and promotion of a new national image, as well as fashion-related explicit and implicit forms of disobedience to the autarchic policies of the fascist regime.