Feast your eyes upon the fabulous 1980s fashions of Italy. The new exhibit Made in Italy, Sold in America highlights the Italian lifestyle magazine Attenzione, which was published in the United States in the early 1980s for an elite readership of Italophiles. The magazine introduced Americans to now-iconic designers like Gianni Versace and Moschino.
Attenzione covered a range of topics relating to Italian culture including politics, the arts, society, food, and most notably, fashion. Though the topic of fashion was seen by some readers as undermining the magazine’s purpose of spreading knowledge about Italian heritage and history, for others coverage of the successful careers of Made in Italy designers was inspirational and a point of pride.
In the exhibit, you'll get to see the magazine alongside examples of designer fashions from the 1980s to today, sourced from the NYU Costume Studies MA Study Collection. The exhibit also explores why not everybody was happy about the cultural revolution spread through fashion and what happened to Attenzione. See it on weekdays through May 5 at NYU's Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò (24 West 12th Street); it's free to attend. You can book a guided tour with the curator Marcella Martin by contacting casa.italiana@nyu.edu.
