Filippo-Schettini-12

Rosselli Kuster, Emilia

Kuster Emilia Rosselli (1903-1958): was an Italian journalist.

Emilia Kuster Rosselli was born in Livorno into a family of strong civil commitment (she was a cousin of Carlo and Nello Rosselli). Already at a very young age she devoted her attention to the world of women by opening an embroidery school in her city. Supported by this experience, with the lucid, “gentle” determination that was typical of her, in 1933 she convinced the architect Gio Ponti to publish, as a complimentary supplement to Domus, the Bible of architecture and design between the two wars, the embroidery and fashion magazine Fili, which, under her direction, also became famous for its attention to the Milanese artistic world of the time (Lucio Fontana, Fausto Melotti). He became an authority in the sector. In fact, in 1940, the Milan Triennale commissioned her to organise an exhibition together with Fabrizio Clerici. It remained a point of reference in the history of embroidery art.

Emilia Kuster Rosselli was a charismatic and spiritually elegant woman

Forced to go into hiding during the years of racial persecution, she returned to journalism in 1950 and, with the financial support of her husband Roberto Kuster, she founded Novità, a magazine that was loosely inspired by prestigious American publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. With a decidedly Italian elegance and spirit, we would say European today, it opened up to fashion, furnishings, art, current affairs, social problems, cooking and gardening. It was a magazine that, through a pleasant and well-timed layout, revealed an innovative force in the post-war women’s press.

A charismatic and spiritually elegant woman of many interests and remarkable culture, Emilia Rosselli Kuster had a great admiration for the French fashion of the 1950s which she made widely known in Italy, but at the same time she contributed greatly to the launch of Italian fashion by giving strong support to her friend Bista Giorgini, the inventor of the catwalk at Palazzo Pitti in Florence.

The importance of image in the Fashion world

He realized the importance of image in the presentation of fashion very early on. In fact, he wanted to give it greater value with the contribution of photographers, introducing the great Ugo Mulas to fashion photography, for example. His prestige and the esteem he enjoyed even in foreign editorial circles (during the Paris collections, in the parterres of the Fashion Editors, he sat between Hélène Lazareff and Eugenia Sheppard, between Bettina Ballard and Françoise Giroud) were the prerequisites for the magazine’s subsequent developments, after his death in 1958.

You may also like:

Rosselli Kuster, Emilia (Italian Version)

Harpers Bazaar 

Vogue