Fili

Monthly magazine with models, drawings, and how-to instructions for sewing, knitting, embroidery, and crochet. It was first published in January 1934 in Milan by the publishing house Domus, owned by Gianni Mazzocchi. Emilia Rosselli Kuster was the editor until racial laws enacted by the Fascist government no longer allowed it. It was created to “free the Italian woman from the influences of foreign fashion.” Alina and Maria Luisa di Ricaldona, Pia di Valmarana, Wenter Marini, Sandra Zelaski Gui, and Giuseppina Perti Baragiola all worked on it. Among the supplements issued by the magazine were Fili-Moda, which in January 1942 became a monthly of practical fashion edited by Paola Moroni Fumagalli, and the biannual of children’s fashion Fili-Bimbi edited by Emma Robutti. When the government required tailors to make clothes inspired by regional costumes, Fili-Moda adapted, asking Maria Pezzi to create captions and sketches for a series of double-page spreads devoted to the styles and colors of costumes from Sardinia and Liguria. “The editor,” says Maria Pezzi, “was a very intelligent woman. Publishing a fashion magazine in that period was not easy. In addition to folk-inspired themes, I suggested features on how to re-style an old cloak and how to recycle old clothes, and suggested dresses, jackets, skirts, and sun dresses created by me.”