Before 1951: Setting Up the Network of G. B. Giorgini and the Launch of Made in Italy

The professional biography of Giovanni Battista Giorgini (1898–1971) was almost mythicized until about 2005 (Fadigati 2018, 13) when his rich and complex personal archive became accessible to scholars. This made it possible to expand the current scholarship beyond the narrative that confined Giorgini in the framework of the first Italian High Fashion Shows in Florence, which he started in 1951 and became the foundation of the current Pitti Immagine trade-fair circuit. In this article, as part of this wave of studies, I discuss the earliest developments of Giorgini's network of acquaintances in the United States and his business vision before establishing his career as a full-fledged fashion intermediary from 1951 onward.Giorgini was greatly aided by his connections within the United States, many of which were established before World War II, in identifying a promising moment for introducing Italian luxury products overseas. Combining a critical analysis of correspondence pertaining to his archive, held at Archivio di Stato in Florence, Italy, with a close reading of press articles of the time, my research sets out to achieve three aims. The first is to challenge the notion that Americanization is a one-way process and to demonstrate instead the mutual transfer of business culture between Giorgini and his clients. The second aim is to go beyond the traditional take on Giorgini's biography and include his pre-1951 activities in a more comprehensive approach to the study of his later success. The third aim is to bridge the academic discourse that so far has confined Giorgini to the history of Italian fashion and instead to include his biography in a wider historicization of the intermediaries that, while competing for the same clients, shared the common goal of developing a market for Made in Italy products in the United States.This article introduces Giovanni Battista Giorgini by discussing the perspective adopted so far to celebrate his role in the history of Italian fashion. It then moves back to a critical analysis of his business activities between the 1920s and the 1940s to contextualize the types of relationships that grounded his associations with the United States. The article further hints at the circularity of discourses and messages promoted by other intermediaries who, like Giorgini, contributed to establishing a cohesive narrative to advance the export of Made in Italy products in the United States.In April 1951, the Italian fashion magazine Bellezza published an editorial by Florentine journalist Margherita Cattaneo detailing how Italian fashion was finding its way to America through the city of Florence. Cattaneo described how commissionaire Giovanni Battista Giorgini had just the previous February caught the attention of Florence's high society by organizing an extremely exclusive fashion show in his home. During this First Italian High Fashion Show, a small group of Italian dressmakers presented innovative and original fashion designs that bore no reference whatsoever to contemporary Parisian styles and trends. The audience, a small number of US and Canadian buyers and a handful of Italian journalists, avowed the success of the event. Giorgini's First Italian High Fashion Show had indeed responded to the complaints of those who, especially through the pages of Women's Wear Daily, lamented difficulties in selecting Italian export goods: dressmakers were distributed in far too many locations across the country, and the quality of fashion merchandise was often reported to be uneven (Faggella 2019, 117–118, 216–219). Cattaneo celebrated Giorgini's intuition, arguing that it all had been possible thanks to his longstanding experience with Made in Italy exports to the US (Cattaneo 1951, 49–55). As the popularity of the Italian High Fashion Shows grew through the years, journalists in Italy and abroad chimed in to confirm Giorgini's confidence and determination in devising such an innovative platform for Italian fashion.The earliest works documenting his impact on the history of Italian fashion combined fragmented oral histories collected from fashion professionals within the framework of the official narrative provided by Giorgini's daughter Matilde (Chesne Dauphiné Griffo 1985; Vergani 1992). The celebratory narrative found in the newspapers, weeklies, and fashion magazines of the 1950s, the result of a carefully planned public relations strategy, was thus historicized in the first academic accounts that set out to identify the origins of Italy's participation in the international fashion market of the postwar years. Following Giorgini's sudden death in 1971, the influence of his daughter Matilde's memories, along with her reluctance to open her father's archive to the public and her desire to protect her father from posthumous criticism (Fadigati 2018, 13), heavily shaped portrayals of Giorgini in fashion literature. Indeed, for quite some time, narratives about Giorgini in both popular culture and academia possessed an almost hagiographic quality, describing the Italian High Fashion Shows as a sudden and absolute success and lavishing elaborate praise on the genius of Giorgini for the creation of an atmosphere that "titillated the snobbish weaknesses of the American guests" (Vergani 2001, 130).As the field of fashion studies became more institutionalized in academic settings, studies of Italian fashion history became more critical, empirical, and multidisciplinary. The impact of Giorgini was reevaluated by studies that eschew the nation-state paradigm, emphasize the transatlantic exchange of which he was a part, and discuss the genesis of the archive that bears his name (Pagliai 2011; Stanfill 2018, 2021; Faggella 2019, 2024). This article highlights Giorgini's social and entrepreneurial interactions as a retail intermediary, a category of professionals often overlooked (Blaszczyk and Pouillard 2018). In particular, my research focuses on the need to understand the historical and social realities of fashion through an in-depth study of "behind the scenes" activities interposed between production and consumption (Blaszczyk 2000, 12). Personal connections were crucial in establishing an exchange of work methods that influenced retail, display, and hospitality practices in Italy and the United States. The following sections illustrate the contacts that Giorgini acquired in his first trips to the United States, the types of relationships that derived from them, and how such connections influenced the business culture he would adopt in the following years.Giovanni Battista Giorgini was born in 1898 in Forte dei Marmi, in the Versilia territory of Tuscany, to a wealthy family of aristocratic origin. His father and uncles ran a marble quarry where he worked briefly between 1920 and 1922 (Pagliai 2007, 19). In 1922, he decided to start a career of his own in sales and moved to Florence to open an import-export business in decorative arts, antiques, furniture, textiles, home décor, and giftware. Often referred to as a "buyer" in biographical literature, Giorgini defined his profession to American customers as a commissionaire, an intermediary between store buyers and manufacturers. Commissionaires were crucial in the international couture trade, aiding buyers in the selection of designs, management of transactions, and arrangements of shipping and customs fees (Troy 2003, 240); yet transactions of Italian couture purchases would be officially added to Giorgini's résumé only in 1951 with the establishment of the Italian High Fashion Shows. Commissionaire businesses in Italy, however, grew significantly from the start of the twentieth century, and by the end of World War I, several started to appear in Florence to supply American demand with the types of artisanal crafts desired by affluent consumers overseas (Roggi and Pitzalis 2004). Sensing the fruitful timing of this new business idea, Giorgini departed on the ocean liner Conte Verde in November 1924 for his first trip to the United States, where he was to acquire firsthand experience of the retail market and secure relevant business contacts.His primary contact in New York was Dino Bigongiari, professor of Italian literature and later executive officer of the Italian section of the Department of Romance Languages at Columbia University. Bigongiari and Giorgini were both from the Tuscan area of Versilia and shared common political views and a friendship that lasted their whole lives. An expert on Dante, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, Bigongiari had been a faculty member at Columbia University since 1904 (Ragusa 1995, 62) and a supporter of Fascism, a stance that was criticized by some colleagues and almost caused his expulsion from the university (New York Times 1965, 47). Accustomed to New York high-society settings, Bigongiari offered to introduce newly arrived Giorgini to Countess Irene Nicolis di Robilant, a Piemontese socialite and author who, at the time, was invited to tour the United States to hold conferences debating ways to strengthen the connections between Italy and America (Nye 1924, A7). The influence of Nicolis di Robilant in Italian American circles at the time seemed so impactful to Giorgini that he wrote to his wife about the possibility of meeting her: "Dino (che le è molto amico) mi ha detto che ormai Irene è quasi la padrona di New York. Ha moltissima influenza e una quantità di buone conoscenze fra tutti i pezzi grossi degli Stati Uniti. Dino pensa di condurmi da lei, perché mi sarò certo utilissima" (Pagliai 2007, 114; Dino who is a good friend of hers told me that now Irene is almost the owner of New York emphasis mine. She has a lot of influence and several good acquaintances among all the big shots of the United States. Dino is thinking about taking me to her because she will be surely very useful to me).1 Such a meeting would have possibly brought connections with New York City's high society and the local press, for which Nicolis de Robilant would occasionally write. Adamant in her support of Fascism, Nicolis di Robilant held a "series of lectures on the forms of foreign governments" in the spring of 1925, steering the public's opinion toward Mussolini during a period in which the United States held great expectations following the Italian dictator's seizing power and promising a reformation of the Italian government (Vogue 1925, 39).The support of Fascism by both Nicolis di Robilant and Bigongiari aligned with the political stance of Giorgini. An ardent supporter of Fascism already in its first wave, he established the local Fascio di Combattimento in his hometown of Forte dei Marmi in 1921 and took part in the March on Rome in 1922 (Giorgini 1921). In later years, despite his political views, his seamless return to business activities after the war was cleverly addressed by the official historiography. His daughter Matilde recounted to journalist Guido Vergani how, during World War II, Giorgini was asked by the Allies if he had ever been a fascista: when he admitted that he indeed had been one, the Allied officers reportedly shook his hand and congratulated him for his honesty (Malossi 1992, 30).Giorgini's support of Fascism needs to be examined within the historical and social context in which he was brought up. From his father's side, he was a relative of Giovanni Battista Giorgini (1818–1908), an academic and senator of the Kingdom of Italy who was involved in the Risorgimento and who fought in one of the many battles for the liberation from Austrian dominance (Ginzburg 1983, 283). Thus, his younger namesake grew up in awe of the legacy of this illustrious ancestor, celebrating the rhetoric of Risorgimento and the political ideal of a unified Italy freed from foreign dominance and able to prosper under limited control from the state. This set of ideals resonated with his later role as self-appointed "ambassador" of Made in Italy (Calanca and Fadigati 2021, iii) and would permeate his business vision and promotional discourses.On the one hand, on his first trip to the United States, Giorgini was greeted by the support of acquaintances, well connected to the élites of the Italian American community there, that aligned themselves with the political and social ideals of Fascism. On the other hand, the connections that proved to last longer, and with a tighter bond, were with those whom Kristin L. Hoganson defines as "native-born, white, middle-class to wealthy women" and men "more likely to have the financial resources to lavish large sums on their houses, wardrobes, and entertainments" (Hoganson 2010, 8). An enthusiastic businessman, Giorgini naturally bonded with other business professionals, such as Wallace Speers of the McCutcheon's department store in New York City. Their shared perspective on religious faith and Christian ecumenism cemented the common ground between the two men, solidifying their alligned commercial interests.Indeed, religion played an important component in Giorgini's private and professional life. He was born into the Waldensian community of Tuscany, and his mother, Florence Rochat (1860–1942), and her family were prominent members of the Waldensian church of Italy and Switzerland. From his family coterie, Giorgini acquired the flexibility of multilingualism (he was fluent in Italian, French, and later in English), a supportive network of contacts founded on the solidarity of its members, and the belief that moral values can be translated into one's business activities, contributing to the advancement of society. In 1924, the same year as his first trip to the United States, Giorgini established the Associazione Cristiana dei Giovani in Florence, an Italian counterpart to the YMCA promoting activities for young Christian evangelicals (Pagliai 2012). On a similar note, Wallace Speers was very active in the Presbyterian community of Montclair, New Jersey, where he resided, and in the World Student Christian Federation, of which Giorgini was also an active participant.The McCutcheon's department store opened in 1855 in New York City (fig. 1), specializing in linens and fabrics and frequently advertising in the pages of such magazines as Vogue or Town You ask me to send you a catalog of what I export, which could interest your wife: I am afraid I cannot do it because I will be forced to send you a ton of them. I export from several diverse firms, furniture, ceramics, glass, wrought ironwork, leather, fine wood, embroideries, silks, brocades, etc.).Business between the two firms grew steadily, and following the employment of Giorgini as McCutcheon's commissionaire of Italian goods, Wallace Speers would frequently travel to Florence to visit the Giorginis, who hosted him as if he were a family member. Once World War II ended, Giorgini reprised the habit of annual business trips touring his clients in the United States and was always met by Speers and his family with the same warm hospitality that he extended to Speers in Italy. Indeed, when his business brought him to the state of New York, Giorgini would stay at the Speers residence in Montclair and go to New York City every morning by car with Speers and his son Wallace Jr. to work at their store. In 1946, Giorgini spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Speerses, and in 1948 he was invited to vacation with them at Lake Squam in Holderness, New Hampshire. Surrounded by the woods at the Speerses' cabin, he wrote to his wife that he felt as if he were in the Disney movie Bambi: "Mi sembra di essere nel bosco di Bambi" (Giorgini 1948). Sometimes the two men went to the movies together or simply drove around town in Speers's magnifica Buick. Immersed in the cultural milieu of his "American family," as he would often call it, Giorgini assimilated the familiarity enjoyed in Montclair and the conventions and courtesies he experienced in business meetings while there. Such moments of social interaction he would then reciprocate during his friends' visits to Florence. And while the connections with other US department stores grew and Giorgini extended his network in other states, the link with the McCutcheon's store would remain the most personal of all because of the Speers family.Many more business trips to the United States followed after 1924, during which Giorgini acquired firsthand experience of what running a department store entailed. The list of his overseas clients grew and included Chicago's interior firm Watson in four or five cities in Italy shops similar to the American department stores, though giving them a quite distinct atmosphere, meaning refined taste and style combined with practicality and affordable prices. These shops should sell the best output from Italian handicrafts and small industries, displayed in the best setting. Setting is what fully enhances an object).2The shops would have functioned as both retail spaces for the general public and wholesale showrooms for foreign buyers on their shopping trips through Italy. Objects showcased were supposed to be samples of handicrafts produced in small batches, differing from one another due to their unique handmade nature, and created by local artisans specifically instructed by Giorgini to accommodate the taste of his foreign clients. The importance of continuous feedback from clients complemented Giorgini's vision for the launch of an Italian (and Florentine) luxury handicraft market. The business proposition was modeled on Giorgini's own shop, Le Tre Stanze (the three rooms), located on Lungarno Guicciardini, which he deemed to be a new example in the retail business, displaying the value of local craftmanship mainly through the concept of giftware: Ambientando nel modo migliore gli oggetti di utilità pratica che sono ricercati per la necessità di una casa, o per la gentile usanza del "regalo," l'atmosfera di questo negozio, del tutto nuovo nel suo genere, è quanto mai attraente e riposante, nella sua signorilità di linea e armonia di colori. Esso tiene esclusivamente merce di produzione italiana, col compito precipuo di valorizzarla. La vendita della produzione artigiana—i progetti e commissioni di arredamento—un ritrovo di arte e di cultura—sono le tre attività delle Tre Stanze. (Giorgini 1933)(Setting in the best way possible practical objects that are requested for the necessities of a home, or for the kind custom of the "gift," the atmosphere of this shop, an entirely new kind of shop, is extremely attractive and relaxing, due to the elegance of its style and the harmony of its color palette. It only carries items produced in Italy, with the specific aim of enhancing their origin. Selling handicrafts—designing furniture on special order—being a meeting point for art and culture—are the three activities of Le Tre Stanze.)Highlighting a curated environment that enhanced the objects and accented their authenticity, sophistication, and expressiveness (Hickey 1997, 85) in terms of their Italian provenance, Le Tre Stanze showcased what Giorgini considered to be the most authentic products of the Italian handicraft tradition and functioned as a pilot showroom for his project. Inspired by this concrete experience, the new shops would have ideally combined the convenience of a single place that offered several types of merchandising, from giftware to specially made furniture pieces, with the possibility of buying unique objects in a city—Florence—that could boast a universally recognized artistic and cultural influence. In addition to a large selection of affordable pieces, which would have pleased the average customer, the shops envisioned in Giorgini's project would have carried an additional selection of limited edition items made by the best and most famous artists to attract collectors. Furthermore, every shop aimed to become a cultural meeting point, equipped with lecture halls for concerts, exhibitions, and public readings, and a gathering space for artists, artisans, and designers.In the proposal, Giorgini highlighted the advantages of such an endeavor to ENAPI. First of all, he pointed out his knowledge of the workflow adopted by Italian artisans, which he had developed through the years by traveling Italy from north to south to collect the best products and mediating the requests of his clients for them. Furthermore, his familiarity with American stores was frequently mentioned as a guarantee of his expertise, functioning as the backdrop to this proposed modernization of handicraft retailing and marketing. The local handicraft industry during the 1930s was inexorably tied to the direction set by Alessandro Pavolini, secretary of the Florentine PNF (Fascist National Party) at the time, who aimed for Florence to become "the most artisanal city in Italy," where cultural policies valued the artistic tradition of artisans grounded in a centuries-old cultural heritage and deliberately avoided the development of modern industry (Pellegrino 2021, 194). In an attempt to find middle ground, Giorgini advocated for the use of "foreign" retail techniques to boost sales and be more competitive in the domestic market against imported products while at the same time supporting the emphasis placed by the Fascist regime on craft workers as the legitimate heirs to the archetypal bottega rinascimentale, as contemporary pupils of Renaissance artists and their workshops. The proposal included many testimonials lauding Le Tre Stanze as a successful vision for the handicraft industry, including Gio Ponti's, who promised to send copies of his magazine Domus for advertising purposes (Ponti 1933). Giorgini emphasized the impact of such a retail business, stressing its political undertone, while the main goal of boosting Italy's own handicrafts sector was framed in terms of establishing its relevance abroad as well: "Un'affermazione di italianità che certamente, oltre che portare i suoi frutti in Patria, farebbe una forte favorevolissima impressione sui forestieri che visitano il nostro Paese. Rientrerebbe insomma nel vero spirito della Corporazione e dell'Italia Fascista" (Pagliai 2007, 235; An affirmation of Italianness that would certainly not only bear its fruits in our homeland but would also make a strong and favorable impression on those foreigners visiting our country. It would, in short, fall within the true spirit of both the Corporation and Fascist Italy).The development of a showroom concept inspired by American department stores and the adoption of business practices catering specifically to US buyers happened at different times in Giorgini's career. In 1932, he "opened offices in Paris and . . . put on display a wide range of articles" (Paris Bureau 1932, 8). News of the inauguration of Giorgini's Parisian showroom was first published in March of that year and then reported again later that same month, confirming that his import-export business focused on fashion merchandising (yet still not including high fashion or couture). Because Giorgini had been publishing ads in Women's Wear Daily since 1929, he was aware of the value of publicity in the influential publication for fashion professionals. Appearing in this trade journal indicated that the shop aimed to cater to American buyers who did not have the time or the intention to go to Italy. Even later, during the early postwar years, American buyers found the vastness and complexity of Italy's marketplace confusing. Flocking from US department and specialty stores, they would arrive in Italy to fill up their quota of European exports in a country where it was "virtually impossible for the individual American buyer to go over and do a thorough job of rounding up handicraft among the widely-scattered Italian craft centers" (Teague 1949, 7).In Paris, on the contrary, the G. B. Giorgini showroom was specifically created to present Italian fashion and apparel merchandise following the taste of US retailers and wholesalers. One article described several categories of fashion accessories that would have been of interest to the trade journal's readers and American buyers in general, such as matching sets combining a pair of shoes, a bag, and a belt; several options for kid gloves; costume jewelry mimicking antique hand-wrought silver ornaments; and semiprecious silver jewelry decorated with pearls and set in less fashionable but unique and artistic styles (Paris Bureau 1932, 8). The showroom was opened at 4 Rue Martel, within the premises of the commissionaire firm Adolphe Schloss Fils et Cie (Perkins 1932, 6). Director Lucien, son of the founder, worked as a resident adviser in Paris for the Textile Color Card Association (Blaszczyk 2012, 180) and was a business acquaintance of Giorgini's (Pagliai 2007, 135). The legitimation provided by Schloss allowed Giorgini to showcase interesting merchandise for busy American buyers, creating an attractive set of ideas as a complement to their usual Parisian shopping spree.Eventually, even if the Parisian venture did not continue through the years, the business relationship with Schloss was beneficial to Giorgini in the long run. It was probably Schloss who introduced Giorgini to Odette Tedesco and subsequently connected him with the California department-store chain I. Magnin, which would become another steady client of Giorgini's in the 1950s.3 A commissionaire in the field of couture, Tedesco started working for Schloss in 1928 and after World War II acted as a liaison between I. Magnin and several Parisian couture houses. Like Giorgini, Tedesco was praised by her manager for bringing "as much from the United States as she sends over there, this means not only goods, but also working methods" (Paris Bureau 1959, 18).As had happened with the Parisian showroom and despite the multiple business ventures, business was never continuous enough to bring solid economic stability for Giorgini in the 1930s. In the many letters written to family, friends, and business partners at the time, he frequently commented on how wholesale import-export transactions suffered from the 1929 crisis, and ultimately the losses in profits caused the bankruptcy of Le Tre Stanze.4 Giorgini was aware of the main issues that characterized the handicraft industry: artisans were usually not quick enough to produce what was required from them, and shipments had to therefore be delayed. This was a frequent cause of dissatisfaction among US clients, and it eventually led to the withdrawal of many business contracts there. Yet Giorgini never ceased to be interested in trading with the US market, as his letters constantly refer to the need to keep in contact with his American customers. His familiarity with the United States and a penchant for the business approaches of his clients there became a trademark of his work, especially when he attempted to replicate promotional strategies seen in department stores abroad or, after the war, with the establishment of the Italian High Fashion Shows.Giorgini's determination to export handicrafts to the United States and his creation of Italian handicraft specialty stores presaged scholar and journalist Max Ascoli's vision for the postwar relief of Italian artisans. In 1945, Ascoli kickstarted two nonprofit organizations—Handicraft Developments, Inc. (HDI) and CADMA—to support Italian handicraft makers and to showcase their output in the New York showroom House of Italian Handicrafts, which was open to buyers and retailers.5 HDI and CADMA merged in 1948 to establish the Compagnia Nazionale Artigiana (CNA), whose efforts culminated with the organization of the touring exhibition Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today.6 In the same period, Giorgini was collaborating with Albert C. Hagmayer, the art director for Chicago company Watson rather, he cleverly echoed the Fascist emphasis on the noble origins of Italian handicraft production in Le Tre Stanze, the retail project inspired by it, and many other of his retail ventures. As had been the case with Italy at Work: Her Renaissance in Design Today, Giorgini's rhetorical strategies would pass the test of time once they were adopted by American promoters (Faggella, 2023b).Giorgini's role as a resident buyer for American department stores and specialty shops brought a mutual exchange of culture for him and his customers. While he undoubtedly contributed to the introduction of Italian luxury crafts and the concept of traditional regional workmanship to US consumers, at the same time, he attempted to introduce to Italy some of the business practices he experienced on his trips and during the time spent with customers. This would be especially evident even later in his career, during the setup of the fashion division of his office after the establishment of the Italian High Fashion Shows in 1951 (Faggella 2023a).Giorgini's connections with the Italian American community were not as relevant as the network of acquaintances built on professional exchange and, most significantly, on religious kinship (see also Pagliai 2007). Nonetheless, he developed a business culture—which, on many levels, intertwined with that of his American clients—based on hospitality, efficiency, and a keen aptitude for mediating the taste of both customers and artisans, a distinctive characteristic of his business that remained steady in the years to come and influenced his career as a fashion intermediary.