De Liguoro

Lydia De Liguoro is an italian journalist. She defined herself as the “indomitable foot soldier of Italian fashion” for her battles and campaigns against the xenomania of Italian elegance and in favor of clothing, fabrics and accessories created in Italy.

De Liguoro support the Fascism

De Liguoro was a supporter of Fascism. As a matter of fact, the journalist had become a member of the Women’s Fascist Groups as early as 1919, after the gathering in Piazza San Sepolcro where the movement was born. In that year, she founded Lidel. The magazine was dedicated to “Readings, Illustrations, Drawings, Elegance, and Work.” The initials of the corresponding Italian words formed the magazine’s title. At first, she attacked any kind of luxury “to bring women, of all social classes, to a sense of moderation….and to limit the ostentatious display that is damaging the country at this time.”

Then, she changed her tone. If the luxury is Italian, then one must support and favor it, while fighting  against the deeply-rooted habit of buying French styles or reproductions of Lanvin, Paquin, and Poiret. In 1923, Benito Mussolini congratulated her over their common goal: “the success of Italy and of being Italian.”

De Liguoro is the director of “Fantasie d’Italia”

In that same year, she left Lidel in order to direct Fantasie d’Italia, the official organ of the National Fascist Federation of the Clothing Industry. Her writings were full of nationalism, and sometimes plunged into the absurdity of the campaign against losing weight, but they never had the virulence of the Giornale della Donna, the official magazine of the Women’s Fascist Groups. Giornale della Donna ordered people to “banish from Fascist homes the French magazines and newspapers that exalt the strong woman, the main cause of moral imbalance.” She strongly supported the policies of the Ente Moda because promoted national self-reliance. She finished her career in the editorial department of the Italian Silk Institute.