Fashion is best understood in terms of its broad social, cultural, economic, and aesthetic contexts. That is the core message of the Fabric of Cultures project, a research and pedagogic initiative spearheaded by Eugenia Paulicelli, Director of the Fashion Studies program at City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center and Professor of Italian Language and Comparative Literature at Queens College, part of the CUNY system.

Paulicelli has led the Fabric of Cultures (FOC) through multiple research iterations over the past decade, each new program deeper and more innovative than the last. FOC has studied the role of the Made in Italy label in a fashion context, why fashion matters, what our fashion choices say about us and the world, how fashion and clothing are defining parts of our cultural memory and heritage, and how fashion and culture are part of never-ending cycle of social and technological change.

The latest version of the project, Systems in the Making, culminated in an exhibition in fall 2017 at Queens College showcasing students’ fashion designs and art, the work of new fashion industry entrants, both Italian and New York-based, and signature pieces of iconic Italian fashion brands. Each exhibit told its story: how the fashion or art on display embodied local traditions of craftsmanship, demonstrated technological advances, or was environmentally sustainable. From the standpoint of Made in Italy, Paulicelli says the exhibit was designed to give viewers the opportunity to reflect on the innovations and creativity of the new Made in Italy, which she suggests must now be seen through a “transnational” lens, in “conversation with other cultures, traditions, and technology.”

Parallel journeys

Central to the show was an exploration of the work of Rosa Genoni (1867-1954). Paulicelli describes her as “a founding mother of transnational feminism, of peace activism, and of Italian fashion.” Genoni’s work in Italian fashion is one of the earliest expressions of what we now think of as the Made in Italy concept.

On display at the exhibition was the re-creation of Genoni’s signature design, the Tanagra dress, which brought the experiential purpose of the FOC project to life. Genoni created the dress in 1908, and Christina Trupiano, one of Paulicelli’s graduate students and a fashion professional, recreated it nearly 110 years later for the exhibition, developing an appreciation for the historical significance of the Italian designer and activist and her craft. These women’s journeys have surprising parallels, which makes the FOC project real and relatable.

Rosa Genoni, early 19^th-century Italian fashionista and political trailblazer

Genoni’s was an Italian seamstress turned designer, turned advocate for Italian fashion at a time when Italian fashion, as a concept, was nil. Hers was the first Italian fashion collection to be included in the Milan Expo of 1906. She was an author and teacher, an activist who spoke out against Italy’s involvement in World War I (she was the sole Italian delegate at the International Women’s Conference at The Hague in 1915 and later in Zurich). Genoni worked to reverse the plight of workers and was committed to women’s emancipation.  She fought for the recognition of “female professions” (sarte, divas, designers, art and fashion teachers) and advocated for the dignity of these professions.        

Genoni’s Tanagra dress was inspired by the 4^th century BC Greek Tanagra figurines of elegant women wearing gowns that draped the body gracefully. The Tanagra dress was a symbolic creation for Genoni: she designed it for her address to the Primo Convegno delle donne in Italy in Rome in April 1908.

“Genoni wanted her Tanagra dress to send a strong message – aesthetic and political – about the freedom of women, of their bodies, and of their intellectual lives,” says Paulicelli. The dress was supple, not restrictive in the style of the times, and modern on account of its adaptability: women could tie the long wraps of fabric into different configurations, altering their look to their own liking. The dramatic style caught on -- so much so that Lyda Borelli, one of the foremost divas of Italian silent film and theater, chose the dress for her most important appearances.

Paulicelli, who had authored a bilingual book on Genoni, La Moda e’ una cosa seria – Fashion is a Serious Business (2015), saw an opportunity to transform academic study about Genoni into a real-life application when she first met Christina Trupiano, a new CUNY Fashion Studies graduate student. Trupiano was a fashion professional with the technical knowhow to reconstruct Genoni’s Tanagra dress – a physical sample no longer exists. The idea was hatched to recreate the dress for the Fabric of Cultures exhibit last fall.

Christina Trupiano, patternmaker, with a bent for ethics and sustainability

At 33 years of age, Trupiano is already a highly skilled patternmaker, with a decade of experience. She always had an interest in drawing and sculpture but found her calling in fashion. After graduating from Louisiana State University, she enrolled in an accelerated fashion program at Parsons School of Design in New York, which led to her job as a patternmaker. “It was a smart job,” she says. “Patternmakers engineer design for the fashion industry.” It also was “lucrative,” which meant she could stay in New York, the center of global fashion, rather than return to her native New Orleans.

Eventually, she began to think about expanding her career and knowledge and how she could make a difference in an industry she enjoyed. “I was interested in an academic approach to fashion and found that in CUNY’s graduate program,” she says. Trupiano says she may want to teach at some point but continue to work in fashion on the manufacturing side of the business.

Because of her industry experience, Trupiano also sees fashion through the lens of sustainability and ethics. “It’s an industry that affects our environment and has a huge commercial and social impact.” She is a believer in implementing environmental sustainability standards and measurements. And she’s passionate about how ethics play out in manufacturing. “The fashion industry can be brutal in terms of hours spent on the factory floor to meet overly aggressive deadlines and production demands.” She hopes to have her own factory in the future, where a commitment to ethics, sustainability, and education will be a priority.

Trupiano likes a challenge; recreating the Tanagra dress delivered. She wanted to stay true to Genoni’s design and capture the fluidity of movement. Trupiano and Paulicelli poured over photos of Genoni and Lyda Borelli wearing the dress, but they were one-dimensional and not always helpful. “It became a time-intensive, engineering puzzle. I felt like a detective,” she says. The secret was in the draping. “I first had to drape the dress on my own body to feel the movement and understand how the fabric had to fall.”

Did Genoni make an impact on Trupiano? “I came to relate to Genoni because of her social activism, but it also struck me that like Genoni, I was also doing a lot of things at one time,” says Trupiano. “I have a job, I go to school, I have a husband, and these commitments take time and discipline to manage, especially when you want to make a difference.”

The proof is in the video

Everyone working on the FOC event was pleased with the outcome. Collaborating videographers Massimo Mascolo and Claudio Napoli (Okozoko), captured the creative process and the dress in motion. They staged the video onsite at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City and at Queens College, including other students and interviews with Paulicelli and Trupriano.

At its core, the Fabric of Cultures is a scholarly exploration of why fashion matters, but it is also a celebration of the art of making, something Genoni, Trupiano, Paulicelli, and all the fashion designers and artists featured in the exhibition did exceedingly well.

For more information on the Fabric of Cultures and the recent event, the 120-page exhibition catalog is available on Amazon in digital and print versions.