Fallaci

Oriana (1930). Italian writer and journalist (A Man, Inshallah). Very young and talented, with an extraordinary eye, she received an assignment from the weekly magazine Epoca to cover the first collections in the Sala Bianca at Palazzo Pitti. It was the 22nd of July 1952. “In the kind of expectant silence found only in a court room, a convent, a classroom with students waiting for a test, and during the presentation of a collection, a model stepped out on the runway, tripping in a skirt that was too tight and with her eyes completely hidden by a cloche hat pulled down over her forehead. The girl was wearing a winter outfit and the temperature was 104ú. The Murano lamps and the spot lights gave off an intense light that was hot and blinding, right on the 350 spectators in shirtsleeves and low-necked blouses who, reflected by the giant wall mirrors, seemed much more numerous than the crowd in St. Peter’s during a Jubilee. Waiters moved silently, offering cold drinks and whisky on the rocks; in the background was the whistling of a fan. The girl made a pirouette and raised her fur collar as if she were very cold. Drops of sweat ran slowly down her perfect ochre-colored face, ruining her make-up. The 350 very hot spectators were buyers, and had arrived from Rome twenty-four hours before, on a special train, like presidents and kings, welcomed at the station by smiling hostesses with bunches of flowers. They came, for the most part, from Sweden, Holland, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, England, and, undoubtedly, from France…. Many were women… the vast majority ladies in their fifties, elegant and authoritative, wearing eyeglasses and jewellery. They were the kind of businesswomen who don’t talk much, see everything, and don’t smile in order not to show their gold teeth. They were strict women, used to big numbers and firm decisions, accustomed to leadership; important women, who, with the wink of an eye vainly lined with mascara, can change the course of a bank’s business; women able to strike more fear and command more respect than a diplomat in top hat and striped pants. Before these inexorable judges, for five days, the world of Italian fashion presented its collections. On this occasion, it had the advantage of coming before the Paris collections: in the large ateliers on the Champs-Elysées, the winter models were still being sewn. Nine fashion houses presented their models: Antonelli, Capucci, Carosa, Ferdinandi, Giovanelli Sciarra, Poliboner, Marucelli, Vanna, and Veneziani. Sixteen companies presented sportswear and boutique styles, the kind of export items for which the Americans go crazy.”