RISULTATI RICERCA

The Vespa in the United States: the cultural transfer of an Italian product In the 1950s and ’60s the Piaggio company attempted to export the Vespa into the American market, but met with relatively little success. The author suggests that differences in the urban transport environment, as well as those in the sociocultural context between Europe and America account for this failure, as well as structural problems with distribution and service networks. Although the Vespa was highly successful in becoming a symbolic icon of an Italian lifestyle, this was not regarded as appropriate to the USA.

The Family Pose. Consumption and self-representation in the twentieth century This article examines the relationship between Italian families and consumption in the post-war boom through the study of visual sources, particularly photography. It focuses on the social meanings and uses of photography, and on family albums as a meeting point between the history of public and private. From the 1950s Italian families used photography as a record of their increased wealth, and represented themselves as consumer families. Symbols of the economic boom are depicted: Vespas, cars, holiday destinations. Families wanted to show themselves as having overcome the age of war and misery: these images had the role of representing Italians not as they were but as they would have liked to be. Popular magazines reflected a similar use of photography, enabling Italians to forget about the hardships of wartime, and offering images of smiling actresses and frivolous lives centred around consumer goods.

This article explores the way in which Italian fashion has been presented and employed in the public sphere in Britain and the United States. Special attention is paid to the construction of the media image of Italian brands and the influence of the specific dynamics of the retail sector in these markets. It demonstrates that while Italian fashion is able to rely on an array of appeals to foreign audiences, it is unable to control the perceptions and uses which derive from cultural contexts that are significantly different from the Italian one.