Arbiter

Magazine of fashion and style founded in the immediate post-war period. From the start, the contribution that Michelangelo Testa made to the magazine was crucial. He was hired in 1946 as an editor and within a few months became editor-in-chief and director. Testa turned Arbiter into a magazine with great ambitions, working with the most important journalists and illustrators. The covers done by Paolo Garretto are still famous. The traditional emphasis on information and trends, especially in men’s fashion, was expanded to include all the most important areas of stylistic and artistic production. In the 1950s the magazine played a prominent role in the industrial development of Italian fashion and design. An important event in that history was a meeting in 1951 between textile mills, clothing manufacturers, journalists, and members of the new advertising industry. They met in order to consider the possibility of an absolutely new initiative, a show devoted to men’s fashion. At the end of the 1960s, Arbiter was taken over by Rusconi Editore. But without Testa’s enthusiasm and leadership, the magazine lost both readers and credibility, and ceased publication. A few years later it was back on the newsstands with a different name, Il Piacere.