The Hidden Spaces of High Fashion in Milan from the 1950s to the 1970s

The aim of this article is to explore what happens behind the scenes of luxury fashion and to present not only the physical spaces and the organization of the ateliers that thrived in Milan from the 1950s to the 1970s, but also to draw attention to the conditions of the dressmakers – almost exclusively women – who worked there. In order to achieve this, dressmakers were interviewed, who worked in the workshops of the Maisons of Jole Veneziani and of Mila Schön. Both labels had their ateliers in via Montenapoleone, which remains, today, the centre of Milanese luxury fashion production. What emerged most strongly from these interviews is that Milanese fashion ateliers were places of female exploitation, because dressmakers were underpaid and obliged to accept particularly long working shifts. In spite of this, for urban proletarian girls, working in ateliers was preferable to working in other forms of industry or in factories. In ateliers, at that time, girls were given the opportunity to acquire technical as well as social skills. Firstly, they learned a profession that could be useful if they left paid regular employment after marrying, since most of them continued to work as dressmakers at home. Secondly, being in the same milieu as the aristocratic women who patronized ateliers, familiarized the girls with this clientele’s refined behaviour and elegant style. Finally, the dressmakers could derive satisfaction from the awareness that they had contributed to the creation of highly skilled, precious, luxury handmade items

Business · Order (exchange · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

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